This week, we are so proud and excited to announce that one of our quilt designs and the pattern, “Moody” is featured in the new issue of July/August Modern Patchwork magazine. It’s always a thrill to see yourself and a quilt you’ve designed in print! This issue is just hitting newsstands and is available for purchase here.
I also think it’s always interesting to hear about a ‘pattern’s history” – some patterns work right away and some like this one need to wait for the right fabrics to come along to make it “sing” (our term for when the design and fabrics work splendidly together – when they do, the quilt begins to “sing”…..tra-la-la-la)
This particular pattern was designed several months ago by Carl using the quilt software EQ7 (or Electric Quilt version 7). It’s original design was in a hot, modern palette and all the blocks were intended to be appliqued over the super large 4-patch background. It’s also been a test quilt to audition other fabrics with large scale florals, etc… but the colors or combinations never quite “sang”.
At least not until Tula came along….
Last year, Tula Pink released her version of modern solids to coordinate perfectly with her other Tula Pink fabric collections, available from Free Spirit Fabrics. I love the range and depth of her solids collection…it’s certainly not a traditional color wheel rainbow of solids, but imho, there’s just something a little more sophisticated, classy and different with these colors….And of course, different means it’s a challenge and I like that! These solids are now a stable at Free Spirit Fabrics and readily available at your local quilt shops and online.
So when we eyed Tula’s solid collection, we immediately thought that our “Moody” quilt that had been waiting in the wings, had finally found a partner – yup -you guessed it – they made beautiful music and the quilt sang!
We submitted the design to Modern Patchwork magazine and they accepted it! However, before we submitted it, we made one major change to the construction – it’s all pieced. We thought the pieced construction would 1) definitely be more challenging for the sewist and 2) evoked more of a modern feel to the overall quilt….
Figuring, checking and double checking the pieced dimensions and arithmetic was a bit of challenge, but after a few test blocks all was great! The quilt construction really goes together quite quickly!
Once the quilt top was complete using Aurifil 5o weight thread (of course) – our good buddy, Teresa at Quilting is my Bliss did an amazing job machine quilting with the grecian keys design. All in all, I think the quilt came out gorgeous and definitely evokes an air of sophistication and of course ‘moodiness’ as the colored blocks seems to change personality when they cross the dark and light backgrounds.
The pattern is indeed available in the current issue of Modern Patchwork now on sale. 
And kudos to the editors as well – if you like the Tula Pink solids I used and want to duplicate it exactly color for color, you’ll find the exact fabrics called out by color name on the materials list in the magazine – a nice added touch by the editors – :- Thank you Modern Patchwork….
Until your next colour fix~ Linda & Carl
To market, to market we go! As always, the Fall Quilt Market was held at the George R. Brown Convention Center in downtown Houston. Except this market, someone came knocking early – yup – Hurricane Harvey crashed our quilty party a few months prior. Many of us vendors and many more shop owners and attendees were concerned that either Houston would not recover or that 
the promoters of the Quilt Market would be forced to cancel. Well, I’m happy to report that neither was true and Quilt Market went off without a hitch – and amazingly, there was no sight of any effect from Hurricane Harvey except for upbeat banners and artwork like this one throughout the city! The downtown Houston area was lively and the convention center (which just completed a gorgeous 2 year revitalization) was perfect! And added to this excitement, the Houston Astros were in the World Series! This all made for a very exciting market to say the least!
We also attended our first ever Sample Spree selling already made Mini ModDog samples along with 6 Mini ModDog patterns – this way, shop owners have an already made sample and take it right back to their shop and start selling the patterns – nifty idea, right?!…Here’s Carl, moments before the madness started. Btw, the dog samples were a hit and the shop owners were thrilled to have an already made sample! Below is a slideshow of all the Mini ModDogs samples we put together – we made 2-4 versions of all the styles you see – all in all, we estimated that we stitched up about 45 samples in the weeks prior to market – Wowwee!
machine quilting. In the 2 short years we’ve had the pleasure of working with Teresa, she has long arm quilted over two dozen quilts for us and all have been perfection! Imho – Teresa is simply one of ‘the best’ custom quilters ever!…..Her intuitive nature consistently shines through on every project – picking just the right pattern to compliment the quilt mixed with 
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!
And what looks to be complicated curved piecing – really isn’t! Here’s how we did it:
Topstitching was super simple using my 
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, 
It’s no secret that Carl and I are huge (and I mean humongous) 
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.
For the trade only – Quilt Market happens just twice a year and it is
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In creating this quilt, I discovered a few tips and tricks along the way. First, the ever useful glue stick came in very handy. I ran a light bead of glue stick along the first fabric so that I could place the black and white dots evenly and perfectly 
vertical over the the first paper pieced section without the dots shifting as I sewed – skewed dots would look awful and I did not want that look!
I also used my very handy ‘Add a Quarter’ ruler to trim off any excess fabric leaving just that perfect scant 1/4″ seam allowance. If you don’t have one of these ‘Add a Quarter’ rulers yet, run – don’t walk – to your neighborhood quilt shop and pick one up – they are super useful for all paper piecing and just a great handy notion to have in your sewing kit!
Colourwerx 