Pirouette Bonus Quilt Pattern

If you were inspired by the Romance Coordinates by Eleanor Burns the other day, and you're looking for a new quilting challenge for 2016, take a peek at "Pirouette." 

Designed by Melanie Greseth and Joanie Holton of Tailormade by Design, this lap-sized quilt features a star block and an orange peel block combination, stitched using Eleanor Burns' Christine collection. Soft pinks and aquas and delicate florals give this gorgeous design a romantically vintage feel. 

"Pirouette" is a Bonus Quilt Pattern in Fons & Porter's Love of Quilting, which means you can download it from their website.

"Pirouette" designed by Melanie Greseth and Joanie Holton;
pieced by Joanie Holton; quilted by Naomi Polzin;
featured in Fons & Porter's Love of Quilting November/December 2015

Photos: Fons & Porter's Love of Quilting

Click here to download the free quilt pattern from Fons & Porter.
Click here to purchase the kit.
Click here to see the entire Christine collection, and here to see the alternate colorway in the Zoey collection.
Click here to find Fons & Porter Love of Quilting magazine.

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Soft and Sweet

If you love to work with soft and sweet romantic fabric collections, add the Romance Coordinates by Eleanor Burns to your shopping list! These pretty bouquets, stripes and pin dots will make a beautiful project on their own or round out the romantic florals you already have. Designed to enlarge the original Romance line, you can combine these fresh coordinates with large floral favorites for a grouping of fabrics that goes on and on. Fall in love and start sewing!

Click here to see the entire Romance Coordinates collection.

Click here to see the original post on the Romance collection.

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Sunshine and blue skies

If you live in the northern hemisphere, January can be a gray month. The best way to combat that dreary feeling? Vibrant, happy color! 

The cornflower blues and sunny yellows of the Brittany collection are full of delicate blooms and patterns that have a French countryside feel--such a classic combination! We think you'll love these prints all together, or just as a wide range of blue shades, or as coordinates to something you've already started. 

Take a look:

Here are two free quilt patterns using Brittany:

"Star Dust" by Wendy Sheppard 

(don't you love that single yellow block!?!)

Download the free quilt pattern here.

 "Summer Blues" by Janet Page Kessler

Download the free quilt pattern here.

Click here to see the entire Brittany collection.

Click here to find the free quilt patterns available for download. 

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Curves, swirls and waves

There are tonal prints, and then there are tonal prints. The depth and texture of Caryl Bryer Fallert-Gentry's New Wave collection sets it apart! Curves, swirls, and waves in 18 different colors--delicious! 

These two free quilt patterns, available on our website, show how the textured New Wave prints enhance a quilt design, taking it from "neat" to "wow"!

"Iridescent Wave" by Julie Lynch

Click here to download the free quilt pattern.

"Tetris Effect" by Stephanie Sheridan and Linda Leathersich of Stitched Together Studios

Click here to download the free quilt pattern.

Click here to see the entire New Wave collection.

Click here to find the free quilt patterns to download.

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One fabric does it all

When you consider making a quilt like Shady Directions, shown below, your first thought might be to wonder how many different blues and reds you'll need. The answer? Just one of each! Lisa Swenson Ruble designed the Shady Directions quilt, featured in the Winter 2016 issue of Modern Patchwork magazine, using our Essential Gradations fabrics, so just one fabric goes from dark to light and back to dark again! 

Tell us about your quilt design.
I actually had designed this quilt without a specific fabric line in mind, and briefly considered making it from my stash, using scraps from light to dark. When I came across the Essential Gradations fabric, I knew I'd found a much better solution! 

What attracted you to the Essential Gradations fabric?
I love the value changes in the fabric. By carefully cutting the rectangles from dark, medium, and light sections of the fabric, I was able to create a sense of movement in the quilt. There are a bunch of different color options in the fabric line--it was hard to choose which to use!

Any tips for making Shady Directions?
Definitely do all of the cutting first, and start by cutting the lightest and darkest rectangles, since there's a bit more flexibility in the medium values. Keep your rectangles laid out and stacked in value order so you can see what pieces you still need. Note: Here's a digital representation of what the fabric looks like, selvedge to selvedge and in detail:

What do you like best about the quilt?
I love the movement that the directional arrows and the changing shades create. I also really like the subtle shading in the colored rectangles--at first glance, it's easy to think that the quilt was made using solids, but the shading adds richness to the design. 

Tell us about the quilting.
I wanted the quilting to enhance the angles of the patchwork design, so I chose to do diagonal lines. I don't like to mark quilts, so I marked only the first line and then used my walking foot as a guide for each additional stitch line.  

Click here to see the Essential Gradations collection.
Click here to see more of Lisa's work. 
Click here to find the Winter 2016 issue of Modern Patchwork.

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We love tuffets!

Have you seen images of pieced tuffets popping up on social media recently? If you haven't, once you see what we have to show, we're pretty sure you'll be searching out a tuffet pattern for yourself! 

Linda Crouch of Tennessee Quilts used a variety of 2-1/2" wide strips of Paula Nadelstern's fabrics to create this stunner:

It's too pretty to rest your feet (or bottom half!) on!

We definitely recognize some Fabracadabra prints in there--what else do you see?

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Happy New Year!

We wish you a happy and healthy 2016!

As the new year approaches, do you have any resolutions? How do you plan to make them happen? Sometimes that's the hardest part! 

Hoping 2016 is your best and most successful yet!

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