Here are two great summer patterns for you, both featured in the Summer 2015 issue of Easy Quilts magazine. We talked to Joanie Holton about both quilts.
First up, "Central Park," designed by Melanie Greseth and Joanie Holton, featuring Michele D'Amore's Our Town collection for Contempo Studio. Guess what? Contrary to what you might think at first glance, this quilt involves no curved piecing! Just fuse and go. (We promised you quick and easy for summer!) The bold tulips make the perfect background for diagonal "stripes" of orange peel shapes.
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| "Central Park" designed by Melanie Greseth and Joanie Holton; made by Joanie Holton; machine quilted by Naomi Polzin; featured in Easy Quilts Summer 2015 |
Tell us about the Our
Town fabrics.
Michele does a really fun use of color—they’re
tend to be unique. There’s pink, but it’s a salmon pink. There’s orange, but
not bright orange. It’s a sweet coloration but not so syrupy sweet. I think it’s
a fun way to show you can do pink with that black in there, which gives it an
edge.
Michele also uses larger shapes, which can
be challenging but make you stretch and think outside the box, like using the
tulip print as the background in the blocks.
What’s one thing you
love about this quilt?
It goes together really quickly—just orange
peel blocks and plain squares. And because of the shape of the orange block,
they just zip right together. The only hint we’d give to anyone planning
to make it—make you sure you pay attention when you lay out the quilt--the tulips are directional.
You took a traditional block
design and changed it up.
I love the orange peel blocks. They’re fun.
This is not a traditional way to see them—the strips of orange peel makes the diagonal
row.
Click here to see the entire Our Town collection.
Click here to find the digital pattern.
Click here to find the kit.
Click here to find Easy Quilts.
Next up, go sassy with the "Tropical Garden" quilt, also designed by Melanie and Joanie, using the Tango collection by Greta Lynn for Kanvas. Big, bright prints make this quilt a crowd pleaser, and the construction is simple--large squares joined by sashing.
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| "Tropical Garden" designed by Melanie Greseth and Joanie Holton; made by Joanie Holton; machine quilted by Sue Krause; featured in Easy Quilts Summer 2015 |
Who do you picture
using this quilt?
It’s such a fun quilt—perfect for that tween
age. Cute and playful but not so babyish.
Tell us about your
fabric choices.
It’s fun to be able to alternate small and
large focal prints—people get stuck, thinking they need to use just a large
focal print—playing with alternating two gives the quilt a different
look.
And what about the
sashing?
I think sashing is a fun way to use stripes.
It creates a really great multicolor look without piecing. For the sashing
squares—sometimes you want that square to pop, but because there was so much
color already going on in this quilt, we didn’t want it to distract from the
center squares, so we chose sashing square fabrics that blended with the
sashing.
Click here to see the entire Tango collection.
Click here to find the digital pattern.
Click here to find the kit.
Click here to find Easy Quilts.
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