Do you Ecco?

 Have you seen Greta Lynn's latest line for Kanvas, Ecco? 
These modern prints are all about circles--dimensional spheres, 6" rings, spoked wheels, and a several more contemporary-style geometric patterns. 


The line comes in modern blue, lime and teal:

And in a more home-dec focused olive, rust, and red:

 Love this line but looking for an idea on how to use it?

With a wide range of values and scale, these prints will work seamlessly in your next quilt design (check out the free quilt patterns below!). For small project fans, the larger prints (love those big rings!) would make great throw pillows or a trendy new purse.

Lapis Lazuli by Stitched Together Studios

Ecco Ecco by Ebony Love

Find the free patterns for these quilt designs here.
See the entire collection here.

What will you make with Ecco?

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Heart & Soul

 A big part of why quilters love quilting is because it's something we put a big piece of ourselves into--creativity, time, effort, and love. It's aptly fitting then, that this beauty is named "Heart & Soul," as that's exactly what goes into each quilt we make!

"Heart & Soul" designed by Mischele Hart;
featured in Quiltmaker January/February 2014

Mischele Hart designed this twin-size quilt for Quiltmaker magazine using Jackie Robinson's He Still Loves Me collection in the blue colorway. Keep reading to find out why she uses hearts in her design and how she came up with the unique border treatment!

What inspired this design?

This design idea began when I saw the artwork for the He Still Loves Me collection designed by my friend, Jackie Robinson. This collection is very appealing in a whimsical and romantic way.  The heart blocks in the design?  A natural!  Because my last name is Hart, I really have fun putting hearts in quilts in all sorts of ways.

How did you decide on the layout, working in the single hearts with the four-patch hearts?

The single heart blocks were an afterthought when I realized that I needed to fill in the spaces left after setting the large four-patch hearts on point.  They worked!  Whew.

The border is so unique! Why/how did you decide to do something like that?

I love, LOVE to design and play with Electric Quilt but usually don’t use the block library, preferring to draw my own blocks even if they are traditional blocks. I do my best thinking when drawing lines, deleting them, changing grids, trying different value combinations and so on. I try, in most quilts, to come up with a block I have never seen before.

A long time fan and student of Mary Ellen Hopkins, I like to use simple geometric shapes in new combinations to create something unique.  The simply pieced four-patch border block was devised when I was working on a way to visually create a weaving border in a diagonally set quilt. I love the border, too!

What do you like best about the He Still Loves Me fabric?

The He Still Loves Me collection is comprised of prints that can stand alone or come together in appealing ways. While the large daisies were the chosen star of my quilt, the daisies had some eye-catching supporting cast members.

It’s wonderful when an artist who is a quilter designs fabric because that artist truly understands the importance of varying the scale and activity in the prints, varying the values in the prints and so on, so that you can pull together a beautiful quilt from a single collection. Jackie hit the ball out of the park with this collection.

Why did you choose to work with the blue colorway?

I cheerfully admit that the blue colorway works best in my home.

What is you favorite part about the quilt?

The border.  I’ll be using that again!

What was most challenging about designing or making this quilt?

The border was the most challenging to design. There were LOTS of misfires!  Cutting and sewing the quilt was soothing.

Can you talk about how this was machine quilted? 

My friend Susan Scheer machine quilted this quilt and came up with the idea.  She was inspired by the daisy print in the border and used a simple single daisy design that really “bloomed” when four of them came together in the interior of the quilt. Susan is a wonderfully talented, multi-faceted artist.

See the entire He Still Loves Me collection here.

Find the February/March 2014 issue of Quiltmaker 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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Cute Critters from Down Under

It's no secret that great fabric makes for a great child's or baby quilt. Designer Lucy Fazely, combined the fun Australian animal themed prints from Kanvas' Down Under collection with a inspired symbolic design to make a quilt straight from the Outback (and no, not the restaurant!).

"Down Under" designed and quilted by Lucy A. Fazely; pieced by Barb MacDonald;
featured in The Quilter magazine February/March 2014

What attracted you to the Down Under fabrics?

The cute Australian critters were too cute to pass on!

How did you choose yellow/gold as the tonal to pair these prints with?

I tried many variations of blues and yellows to make this work and the yellow/gold made the design pop.

How did you come up with the block design? It looks almost like an elongated nine-patch, but not quite.

The block design is based on the Southern Cross (a star constellation that is prominent in the southern hemisphere and is on the Australian flag). I did a Google image search of the Southern Star and worked from there. I wanted the four large stars all the same size, but placed in a formation similar to the constellation - the top and bottom star are almost vertical from each other and the right star is slightly higher than the left star. The best way to do this was to use an original variation of a nine-patch block.

 

Southern Cross image credit

Flag image credit

Why did you choose friendship stars?

The four main stars in the Australian flag are frequently shown with seven points. I played with six, seven and eight point stars - appliqued and pieced. It was the editor's suggestion to use the four point  Friendship Star to symbolize the friendship between Australia and the USA.

What do you envision the quilt being used for?

Initially it was going to be a toddler's quilt. The size changed with the design and it ended up being a baby quilt. Adding Down Under strips for border(s) would make it large enough for a toddler.

Anything else interesting to share about the quilt?

The smaller fifth star was initially planned as an appliqued five point star under the right star. It was talked about including it as a web-bonus to the magazine, but was finally dropped altogether. The good news is that anyone wanting to add a fifth star can do so quite easily.

See the entire Down Under collection from Kanvas here.

Find The Quilter magazine here.

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Feeling frosty? Or just frozen?

It seems like many of us in the U.S. are experiencing winter in its most extreme state...can we say "Polar Vortex?!?!"

In keeping with that theme, it seemed appropriate to share our iciest collection, Frost from Kanvas.

Does it look like this out your window?

 Love the detail of these frosty nature scenes!

 Snowflakes and ice crystals enhanced with glitter!

If so, stay warm! 

If not, lucky you! 

We'd also like to recommend a few surefire ways to stay warm and comfortable:
The first, obviously is to sew! Preferably a binding, so the entire quilt sits on your lap, and preferably using flannel fabric. :) 
The second, try this Hot Chocolate Cake from Real Simple.

Yum!

The third: Embrace the cold. Head to a theater to see Disney's latest movie, Frozen.

And while this may not help you stay warm, it is awfully neat. Check out this web page of six cool tricks you can try in the frigid temps. (And if you don't want to try them yourself, you can watch the videos instead!

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New Year, New Fabrics: Palazzo

We're excited to start the new year off by sharing a fun collection from Kanvas, Palazzo by Greta Lynn. We think you'll love these mosaic-inspired prints as much as we do! 

Greta Lynn describes these prints as "bringing modern flair to classic elements," and she recently shared some of the inspiration behind her designs.

What inspired the Palazzo collection?

I was really inspired by the Mosaic trend I was seeing in home furnishings. Additional inspirations were European mosaic artwork and stone work.

I wanted to design a collection that would incorporate the look of tile, stone, medallions and texture.

Which was the first print you designed?

I designed the Mosaic Medallion first, which consists of overlapping Medallions.

There is a lot dimension in this print because of the way it is layered.

How did you choose the color palettes?

The first color way I designed was the soothing spa-inspired palette of aqua, teal and green. I wanted to come up with a color combination that had a tranquil and soothing feeling.

For the next color way (the neutrals), I wanted a color palette that would represent stone and natural elements, using tones of charcoal grey, putty, ivory, smoky taupe, and black.

Do you have a favorite print?

I have two favorite prints, the Mosaic Medallion and the Mesh print.

I just loved the layered medallions and the way some colors come to the forefront and how other colored medallions sit back into the ground.

I also love the textures in the mesh print and felt that this pattern could be used in a lot of different ways.

Can you talk a bit about the Mosaic Stripe?

I created the mosaic stripe to be used not only for quilts and  borders, but it can also be used in tote bags. I also envisioned the patterns being used in home furnishing projects, such as pillowcases and bedding. There are many possibilities!

Ready to start using these fabrics? 

We've got two free quilt patterns on our website, which you can find here.

Also, Pellon is featuring a tutorial for a travel jewelry case that features the Palazzo collection. Check out the tutorial here.

See the entire Palazzo collection here.

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