Mystic Gold

Fall Quilt Market is quickly approaching and guess what? – we are finally catching up with this blog post about quilts we designed for the Spring Quilt Market in St. Louis!  Oh my – how time does fly!

Fabric designer and artist, Anna Marie Horner, debuted her gorgeous new fabric collection called “Floral Retrospective” at the Spring Quilt Market – which is now out in stores  – and we were fortunate enough to be asked by Free Spirit Fabrics to design a quilt for their booth using her new fabrics.   Introducing Mystic Gold!

When Carl designed this pattern in EQ7 (Electric Quilt 7 software), he wanted to accentuate the rings moving outward from center (as if a pebble had been dropped in a calm pool of water) and give the quilt that almost mystical  “vibrating” or “zingey” look (think of hitting a gong) – hence the pointed tips around each curve.

And what looks to be complicated curved piecing –  really isn’t!  Here’s how we did it:

1.   A simple half squared triangle block is created first;
2. ….then we added the corner triangles;
3. …then we created the petal applique by sewing the lightest weight fusible interfacing right sides together with the fabric petal, slitting the center and turning the unit right side out;
4. …lastly, we fused the petal to the center seam line, topstitched the edges  and voila! – it looks like some serious curved piecing occurred when in fact, it was super easy!

Topstitching was super simple using my #10 Edgestitch Presser Foot (a must for this type of job!) and a matching 40wt Aurifil thread. Perfect every time!  If you’ve ever made an orange peel block, then this is very similar if not the same method indeed!

 

Teresa, from Quilting at my Bliss, did some awesome custom machine quilting.  The free motion feathers across each petal were to die for and her custom quilting in between was equally gorgeous. (click on the pictures to enlarge).

By the way, Teresa has a new book launching in October, called the “Longarm Quilting Workbook”.  It’s filled with great tips on basic skills, techniques and motifs to help get you started  longarm quilting – so if you’ve just purchased a longarm or are considering buying one – this would be a great book to consider adding to your reference library.  And of course, if you’re just looking for some new and fun ideas on how to quilt something – there’s lots and lots and lots of eye candy!  Of course, you can buy directly from Teresa and have her autograph it too!

All in all, this one was super fun quilt to design and create,  and we were so honored that Free Spirit chose this one to hang in their booth at Spring Quilt Market.

If you like this design, it is now available as a free download on the their website – here’s the link!

Until your next colour fix~
Linda & Carl

 

 

Oh-my-Kaffe!

It’s no secret that Carl and I are huge (and I mean humongous) Kaffe Fassett Collective fabric fans….so last year when Free Spirit Fabrics asked us to design quilt patterns for some of the future Kaffe collections – we were – to say at the very least – super thrilled!

The Kaffe Fassett Collective (or also known as KFC) includes not only the master of colour and design himself, Kaffe Fassett, but also fellow designers Brandon Mably and Philip Jacobs.

These three designers collaborate and create the gorgeous fabrics you see.  Kaffe’s long time friend and associate – Liza Roos Lucy – wrangles this dynamic trio and also owns/operates the KFC online shop – Glorious Colour – where you can purchase previous released and new KFC fabrics, books and patterns and specialized fabric kits.  She, Philip and Brandon also host the very popular and always inspiring Facebook group, the Kaffe Fassett Collective.  Both sites are saturated with KFC fabrics, patterns and projects to inspire you!

While Brandon and Philip have their own unique design styles (Brandon does the wild and kooky and Philip does the floral & botanicals)  – Kaffe pulls all of their designs together into cohesive collections by personally colouring each design by hand.  What makes their fabrics so uniquely beautiful and wonderfully detailed is that each master pattern is handpainted (a rare thing in this computerized age)  – this “painting” then serves as the master design for the fabric mills to follow for detail, colour, screenprints and registration when they print it on the fabric you then purchase.

This last Spring, three of our quilt designs using the KFC Spring 2017 collection were released as free downloads or kits on the Free Spirit and Craftsy websites – “All Stacked Up”, “Fan Dance” and “Waterfall”.  Links to download the free patterns are at the bottom of the post. The other, “Waterfall” – of which we made two versions – is now available for purchase as a kit on Craftsy.

“All Stacked Up” – Although the overall design  appears complicated with the overlapping and tiled patterns – the single block itself is so simple:  a half square triangle with two coordinating pairs of strips sewn on 2 sides.  Create two or three of the same block, follow the layout and you’ll have this quilt whipped up in no time.

And here’s a tip – organize and pair up your fabrics first and if you cut your strips a half inch larger – you can then trim them to the exact size after adding each one, therefore keeping the block perfectly square.

So give it a try – “All Stacked Up” remains one of the most popular patterns downloaded this year on the Free Spirit site – so kudos to you guys and thank you!  Fabric kits are also available at Hancock’s of Paducah and Waterwheel House Quilt Shop in Vermont!

“Fan Dance” is another free pattern available.  Again, a super easy pattern but this one is super dramatic when complete and allows you to use some of those huge patterned fabrics for the background.  This was a fun one to work up as Brandon’s Can Can ladies served as a constant source of amusement when cutting the fan blades – seeing which part of the lady would show up where – oh my!

Another super easy to piece quilt.  Cut the blades, sew together and appliqué to the background squares.  This is basically 1/4 of a dresden flower block.  I appliquéd my blades on with clear monfilament thread but you could also use a decorative thread to add highlights to the edges of the blades.  Two 1/4 dresden blocks make a “fan” block!

The third quilt – “Waterfall” – remains one of my all time favorites – we designed and made two versions of  this quilt – a cool colourway and a tropical colourway.  These blocks are a bit more labor intensive but well worth it and the fabrics in the kit on Craftsy are to die for!  The block is made of basic shapes – squares and  rectangles with a folded over triangle.  When all pieced together, the result creates lots of secondary patterns and its hard for the eye to see where the individual blocks start or overlap- kinda like a waterfall…. Super fast and gorgeous! (Full disclosure:  I bought the Cool kit for myself).

Teresa Silva of Quilting is my Bliss – did a gorgeous job, as always, machine quilting all of these quilts – her work is always super stunning and I wish we could somehow show better pictures for you.  Many times we have to take the pictures with low exposure to show off the machine quilting but this also makes the fabric look somewhat dull.   Check out the closeups below.

All of these are perfect patterns to pull from your KFC stash or take the opportunity to,  of course,  add to your KFC stash by ordering more!  And I have it on the best authority, that future KFC collections are also equally gorgeous and stunning – look for KFC Spring and Fall 2018 collections to be released very soon!  We posted a sneek peek on our Instagram and Facebook page a few days ago….

Have fun and enjoy!  Until your next colour fix~ xxoo Linda & Carl

Links:
To download the free pattern for All Stacked Up.
To order a fabric kit/pattern for All Stacked Up.
To download the free pattern for Fan Dance.
To purchase the Waterfall – Cool (blues) Colourway fabric kit.
To purchase the Waterfall – Tropical (oranges) Colourway fabric kit.