Not your grandma's log cabin!

Some of the most intriguing quilt designs come from taking a classic block and doing something unexpected with it Melanie Greseth and Joanie Holton had a great idea--they combined the super-colorful prints of Greta Lynn's Bright Idea collection with the traditional log cabin block, and then added in plenty of white space.

The result? A traditional-meets-modern quilt that's a breath of fresh air!

"Bold & Bright" by Melanie Greseth & Joanie Holton,
made by Jennifer Green and machine quilted by Sheri Zalar;
featured in Fons and Porter's Love of Quilting May/June 2015

What drew you to the Bright Idea fabrics?

They are so playful and bright and fun! The primary colors are fun to work with, the stars have a different feeling than the typical red, white and blue stars you usually see.

 

Tell us about the blenders you used.

We mixed in the Fleurish prints—the colors work so well with Bright Idea, as we needed something vibrant to play off the brights. Because these prints have a little bit of a wavy stripe to them, they’re not as harsh of a stopping point; they have more of a tonal effect, which acts as a resting point for the eye.

How did this design come to be?

We really were trying to do a modern take on the log cabin block. We played around with a lot of different layouts, and it really started to take form when we didn’t have rows and rows of the bright log cabin. The blocks needed space between them so they could get their full effect—otherwise it just became a mush of color. As we started playing with the sashing/lattice between, it gave each Log Cabin a windowpane effect that we really liked. 

This must have been fun to quilt, with all that white space!

Our longarm quilter did such a fabulous job! She quilted it with a firework effect, which really worked well with the stars and zigzags of the fabric.

What do you like best about Bold & Bright?

This really was one of our favorites. It just gave such a fun balance to that modern quilt idea, but still a lot of old-fashioned quilting in there with the piecing of log cabins blocks. It’s such a perfect marriage of traditional and modern quilting. 

Click here to see the Bright Idea fabrics.

Click here to see the Fleurish fabrics.

Click here to learn more about Melanie and Joanie.

Click here to find the kit for Bold & Bright.

Click here to find the digital pattern for Bold & Bright.

Click here to find Love of Quilting.

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Blue Skies: Downloadable PDF pattern

It's March (finally!) and spring is around the corner (right?). 
We all need a little incentive to get to spring right now, and Jackie Robinson is providing it with a free pattern for Benartex blog readers--her Blue Skies quilt. 

The quilt uses her He Still Loves Me Collection (read more about it here), and those daisies and sunshine-y blue and gold hues are certainly a much-needed breath of fresh air! 

Here's Jackie!

I'm WILD about log cabin blocks, of any type.  The alternate blocks in the Blue Skies quilt are the courthouse steps variations of the traditional log cabin.
And stars . . .  well, they are always wonderful.  The larger ones have fussy cut centers of the lovely daisies from He Still Loves Me.

I had been tempted to call this quilt 'BIG SKY' as a nod to my Montana home, though I decided BLUE SKIES was a bit more generic, and they are certainly blue here! I hope you enjoy this free quilt pattern--it uses some of my favorite blocks and fabrics (including that daisy border!). 

Click here to download the pdf of Jackie's Blue Skies pattern. Printing directions: Print in landscape format, placing pages 2 and 7 on the back of 1 and 8,  and 4 and 5 on the back of 3 and 6. Fold. Instant pattern! 

I'd love to see your version of Blue Skies! Be sure to stop by my Facebook page, like it, and share a photo of your work.

Find the kit for Blue Skies here.
Learn more about Jackie here.

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Mi Casa y Su Casa: Technique Tuesday with Debby Kratovil

My House and Your House!

Dwellings Collection - medium sized flowers (Baby Bloom)

What can we do with this collection of 29 different Dwellings prints from Contempo? It's almost too much, like eating the entire Thanksgiving dinner with all the dessert - by yourself! Let's see what Debby Kratovil of Debby Kratovil Quilts narrowed it down to in this week's Technique Tuesday. We sent her half-yard cuts of every single piece . . . the rest was up to her.

What did you do first when you got such a large package?
After I groaned due to visual overload <smile>, I separated the fabrics into matching prints, fanning them out to show the various color families. Wow - wanna see what I found?

Don't you love these colored brush strokes in 11 different flavors? Print is called "Confetti"

Absolutely LOVE these "log cabin" geometrics - Baby Box Trot

Two types of stripes. Can you believe stripes with those ovals - Beaded Stripe?

Very large scale rendition of Baby Bloom - Bloom!

And I saved the best for last:

5 different "log cabin" prints about 8-1/2" for each motif - Box Trot

You obviously had to start cutting somewhere. What ideas were spinning inside your head?
I fell back on one of my "go to" patterns that would combine a geometric (ie, stripe) with a floral and use a 90 degree ruler to cut wedges. I call this "Yikes! Those Stripes!"

Two 3-1/2" strips with good contrast

Method:
1. Cut two 3-1/2" x wof strips of two fabrics (a stripe and a floral). Note that I offset them in order to save fabric. I used an Omnigrid 98L ruler (generally used to cut side setting triangles for setting blocks on point). I ignored the numbers; just used it to cut my stripset, which measures 6-1/2" high as shown.

Flip-flop the ruler to cut as shown

2. Continue cutting as shown in the picture above.

Place the units, cut from the SAME strip set

3. When these pieced triangles are cut, the straight of grain runs along the long edge. This means that your block will have NO BIAS EDGES as in other techniques. Your block will finish to a square without wobbles!

Yikes! Block sewn and pressed

4. I cut pieced triangles from various pairings and got the following quilt center. This is what I would call a "low contrast" quilt - hard to see where one color/fabric begins and the others end.

Remember those large log cabin prints? I used them for a vertical center

5. I made 6 of my Yikes! blocks. As I was using only 1/2 yard cuts of fabric, I had to get creative with finishing the quilt. I used a strip of the large log cabin print as a vertical center. I put in some vertical sashing to separate them. Two different prints for the borders - because that's all I had, that's why!

Debby, did you make anything else?
Well, of course! There was a lot of fabric that I hadn't even played with yet. I thought of some quick and simple hot pads, letting the fabric do all the work.

Single piece fabric hot pads

I like your binding - again a stripe. And your quilting is simple and clean. Can we see the back?
Here you go:

Here is that fantastic smaller log cabin print for the backs

So, you're really done now, right?
Not so fast. I still had things running around in my head. I thought "log cabin" and that goes with Dwellings. How about a log cabin dwelling? I'll show you my steps, but it really isn't a pattern because each of those Box Trot panels isn't the same size:

The large Box Trot panel prints - cut out various units

Cut a 4-1/2" strip, recut into triangles for the roof

Added sky next to the roof and then trimmed. Yes, I lopped off the points!

A completed block that didn't have the points lopped off!

I only was able to make 5 blocks with matching roofs. How can I make this a balanced center?

Added green Confetti fabric to either side of the center house block

I was able to finish this quickly with machine quilting with a walking foot. I absolutely love this little quilt and it is already hanging in my kitchen. It makes me smile every time I see it.

Thanks Debby, for providing so much creative inspiration using the Dwellings collection! 

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