A Taste of Fall: Autumn Leaves

Are fall decorations and pumpkin spice lattes calling your name? 
We have a cozy autumn quilt for you! Melanie Greseth and Joanie Holton of Tailormade by Design used Jackie Robinson's Autumn Leaves collection to create "Leaf Scatter," the Fons & Porter's Love of Quilting September/October 2018 cover quilt.

"Leaf Scatter" by Melanie Greseth and Joanie Holton
and machine quilted by Sue Krause;
featured in Love of Quilting September/October 2018

Why did you choose Jackie’s Autumn Leaves collection for this quilt?

Both my sister and I love fall, and this is such a lovely and warm fall line. Plus, Jackie always creates such beautiful stripes that can be used as borders. Her lines have all the elements you need for a quilt—an allover print, blenders, and medium-size prints in different values. It makes it easy to design a quilt!

Tell us about the design.

We wanted it to be simple and approachable, but also highlight the beautiful fabrics. The design itself is pretty traditional—four-patches combined with a larger focal square. The large allover leaf print works beautifully in the focal squares.

Any tips for making this quilt?
It’s not difficult, but you do have to pay attention to direction as you’re sewing your blocks and then when you’re assembling the quilt.

When you cut the focal blocks, I used a ruler close to the block size and cut out a “row” of blocks. Then I moved to a different section and cut out more. I used a little bit more yardage, but that way I didn’t have the exact same squares for each block.

What do you like best about this quilt?

I love the cozy beautiful colors of fall, and the border print is fabulous!

Click here to see the Autumn Leaves collection.
Click here to purchase the kit for this quilt.
Click here to purchase Love of Quilting magazine.

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Just Catting Around

Start with a two-block design and then add a captivating pieced border on opposite corners...what do you get? Pam Goggans' "Just Catting Around" quilt featured in the May/June 2018 issue of Love of Quilting magazine. Pam used Ann Lauer's Cat-I-Tude fabrics in her quilt, but chose the non-cat coordinates for a rich, jewel-toned quilt. If you prefer, you could substitute the cat prints for the paisley and make a feline-friendly version! We asked Pam to talk to us about her quilt design; find her interview below.

"Just Catting Around" by Pam Goggans;
featured in Love of Quilting May/June 2018

What do you find appealing about the Cat-i-tude fabrics?

I love the bright intense colors in the line. I was drawn to the multi prints but also the jeweled paisley and beads on black background. I also loved the tone on tone prints in so many colors.

Do you have a favorite print in the collection that you used?

My fav was the jeweled paisley and I LOVE bright jewel tones on black backgrounds.

Can you talk about your quilt design?

I love to design using simple basic blocks with basic units in contemporary colors. I love using Flying Geese and creating a chevron with two geese is often a unit you will see in my designs. I used Deb Tucker's (Studio 180 Design) Wing Clipper tool in making all of the flying geese in the quilt.  I like the precision I am able to achieve with this tool.

Using two blocks that include the same basic units with just a bit of a twist is often a feature of my designs. (These two blocks have almost the same units but the geese/chevrons point in on the turquoise blocks and out on the fuchsia blocks.) 

How did you decide on color placement in the blocks?

I tend to design mostly scrappy quilts but stuck with a repeating color "recipe" in the two alternating blocks for this project and then used the scrappy pieced border to play with all the fun colors in the Cat-i-tude line.  Many times my designs will include a "secondary" pattern. In this case it was created by the chains from the fuchsia squares and sashing setting squares. I like how it ties the whole quilt together.  

How did you decide on the border treatment?

I often include a border of the background fabric around the body of the quilt so the blocks "float" in the quilt. I also like the look of multiple borders and often include pieced units borrowed from the blocks in at least one of the borders. Sometimes a whole border of the pieced units is just too much, so a few units on two opposing corners is a look I like better. 

Did you notice my mistake?!? I had pieced the quilt, custom machine quilted it, bound it and sent it to the magazine, but it wasn't until I got it back and hung it up that I noticed that one of the sections of chevrons is pointed toward the bottom corner and all of the other ones are pointed away. Oh well. I guess that is my humility block.

How did you machine quilt this, and how did your choices enhance the quilt?

I enjoy the whole process of designing, piecing as well as quilting. The chain in the fuchsia blocks and the absence of the chain in the turquoise block leaves a great open space for quilting, so of course I had to put feathers in all of the open spaces.

What do you like best about the quilt?

I like the diagonal line created by the chain running through the quilt, and often include some diagonal aspect in my designs.  

Click here to see the entire Cat-I-Tude collection by Ann Lauer.

Click here to visit Pam Goggans' website. 

Click here to find the May/June 2018 issue of Love of Quilting.

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Sunflower Sparkle

We're paws-ing (get it? ha ha...) our Cat-I-Tude focus for this week to share another quilt made by Ann, using her Here Comes the sun fabric. Starring Sunflowers is featured in the January/February 2018 issue of Love of Quilting magazine, and is also featured in the PBS Love of Quilting TV Series 3100 (check your local PBS station for listings).

"Starring Sunflowers" designed and quilted by Ann Lauer; pieced by Lou Thompson;
featured in Fons & Porter's Love of Quilting January/February 2018 issue.

 Ann walked us through her quilt design: 

Tell us about the pieced quilt center.

One of the things that makes this quilt interesting is the way four blocks come together and look like a larger block. You can’t tell what the block unit is at first glance. It’s all done with combinations of simple units—half-square triangles and triangles. It makes an involved-looking block.

The border treatment in this quilt is so interesting!

It’s not a typical border treatment, is it? Nine-patch units on point and setting triangles create a border that flows from the cream quilt center background to the teal dappled texture print. Strips of those two prints around the nine-patches provide breathing space as well. The nine-patches create a delicate look—the edges almost disappear into the next border. 

  

Why did you choose to use sunflower fabric only in the outer border?

The coordinate prints used in the quilt center have so much movement and interest, and I wanted to focus on them. Sunflowers, and splotches of partial sunflowers cut up to fit in the design, would interrupt the design. I thought these coordinates were pretty and worked well together.

And the final touch, the outer sunflower stripe border?

All the beauty in a stripe like that really shines in a wide border. I designed this print so you can cut four stripes of border across the width of the fabric. These sunflowers are actually prettier than those you’d see in nature, thanks to some artistic license. This border gives the sunflowers an opportunity to sparkle.

What do you like best about the quilt?

I like the combination of three things: the center piecing that looks involved but isn’t, paired with the delicate nine-patch border, and then the sunflowers adding weight along the outside edge.

What about fans of purple?

I also mocked up this quilt using the purple colorway! You can see it below, and I have a kit available for it on my website. 

Click here to read more about Ann's Here Comes the Sun collection.
Click here to purchase the pattern and here to purchase the kit. 
Click here to purchase the kit from Ann in either the purple or teal colorway.
Click here to find Love of Quilting magazine. 

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Wildflower Garden

Jackie's Hydrangea Blue collection may just be hitting your local quilt shop now, but if you need a fast flower fix, check out the Wildflower Garden quilt she designed for the latest issue of Fons & Porter's Love of Quilting magazine. The quilt is packed with beautiful flowers and features her A Wildflower Meadow collection. 

Wildflower Garden designed by Jackie Robinson; pieced and quilted by Sheri Butkowski;
featured in Love of Quilting January/February 2018

Tell us about this quilt.

Well, it looks like it’s made on point, but it isn’t. It’s made up of a bunch of tiny nine-patches sewn together. It’s an Irish Chain variation—the nine-patches create the diagonal lines running across the quilt.

How did you decide which prints to feature in the big blocks?

I designed the pattern intending to use the medium florals. They show up really well, and the outer floral stripe ties everything together.

What does this quilt remind you of?

The quilt was recently returned to me (after the magazine photoshoot). When I unfolded it, I realized it reminded me of a garden I’d seen on a recent trip to Slovakia. We were at a castle up on a hill, and the gardens were pretty spent because it was the end of October, but the layout looked very much like this quilt. There are formal gardens like this—patchs among areas of different kinds of flowers—at the Bellingrath Gardens in Alabama, or The Butchart Gardens on Victoria Island in British Columbia. That’s what I like most about this quilt—how it reminds me of formal gardens.

Butchart Gardens

Click here to find the quilt pattern.
Click here to find the kit for Wildflower Garden.
Click here to see Jackie's other quilt patterns featuring A Wildflower Meadow.
Click here to find Fons & Porter's Love of Quilting.

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Irresistible Iris in Print!

Today we're showing Ann Lauer's Irresistible Iris collection in two very different looks. These are both projects Ann designed for magazines; you'll find links to the magazines and to kits for the projects below. 

First is "Perennial Favorite," the name a nod to these old-time favorite flowers that many people fondly remember from grandmother's yard. This classic bargello has plenty of movement and is accented with fussy cut iris blooms. 

"Perennial Favorite" designed by Ann Lauer
and pieced by Linda Brady Peterson;
featured in American Quilter magazine March 2017

Why do you enjoy designing bargello style quilts so much?

I wanted to experiment with using the wonderful medallion tonals and the color play in values. I also chopped up several of the big prints that have a lot of movement. Everything came together, and I was really happy with the result.

How do you design a quilt like this?
I play around on the computer. I’ve designed many bargellos, so I look at previous quilts and pick an area of peaks and valleys to start with, and work from there. I generally choose an asymmetrical design, with peaks of different sizes. This allows the bargello to be the focus of the design. In Perennial Favorite, the peaks are the same height, but they create plenty of cream background space to highlight the fussy cut irises.

What makes this collection work so well with the bargello concept?

The irises are the key print in the collection, but I’ve used the blenders in the pieced background. The prints have a fluid, watercolor feel to them.

I love how the lacey medallion print has so much depth because it includes multiple colors (as opposed to the tonals). The medallions dance across the fabric, and they’re a great blender between the more solid colored prints.

The kaleidoscope print is great as well—so much movement and such a good transition fabric.

The Vari Recs print as well—because they are filled with variegated color rectangles, they create a great transition. These prints work well for color changes in the bargello, shifting from “solid-look” print to “solid-look” print.

Tell us about the fussy-cut irises.

There are two sizes of irises fussy cut out of two different fabric. They’re fused and then fastened with raw edge applique. The background of the iris prints is the same as the background of the bargello, so they blend nicely. Benartex’s printing of these irises in particular is just spectacular. The details are exquisite and it printed gorgeously.  They become the focal point of the quilt.

What else can you tell us about this quilt?

I recommend making it in a quilt as you go style. The quilt comes out totally flat, and you’re not dealing with stretching or an accordion appearance. I also use the gridded flannel as a base. It helps keep all of the pieces straight, and it stabilizes them as well. The lines from quilt as you go enhance the movement of the bargello without having to stitch over the top of it, which could be distracting.

Click here to purchase the Perennial Favorite kit.
Click here to find American Quilter magazine.

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Here are the Irresistible Iris prints in a totally different look. Ann built the design around the kaleidoscope print, combining it with blenders. The only flowers evident are the tiny flowerettes in the black background fabric. 

"Floral Fantasy" runner designed by Ann Lauer, pieced by Linda Brady Peterson and quilted by Ann Lauer;
featured in Fons & Porter's Love of Quilting March/April 2017

What prompted you to design a quilt without any iris prints?

I really wanted to showcase the kaleidoscope print, so that’s what I did. It’s the focal square in the middle of each block, and then the tonals work together, and the flowerette print segues into the purple and pink. I like the how the lighter green stars come toward you and the darker green fades back.

What do you like best about the runner?

Besides a chance to showcase the kaleidoscope print, I like the green and purple prints together. Then the black adds depth and the pink is an accent. Using the black print in the binding pulls it all together as well.

Is this a difficult block?

No! You’re working with basic units here—four-patches, flying geese and half-square triangles. So the runner goes together really fast. It’s a fun design. I also played around with this design in quilt form. You can see what that looks like:

Click here to see Ann's entire Irresistible Iris collection. 
Click here to visit Ann's website.
Click here to purchase the Floral Fantasy table runner kit.
Click here to find Fons & Porter's Love of Quilting magazine.

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