Iris Quilts

NATIONAL QUILT MUSEUM * BLOCK OF THE MONTH

5/5/2021

N.Q.M. B.O.M. ROUND 3 - BLOCK 4

Happy Spring everyone! I finally finished the National Quilt Museum block of the month for April! It took a longer time than other months to finish this block and create a blog than previous months. The garden was calling me and it hasn’t stopped. Also this wasn’t any easy design to piece or pick fabrics for. I had so many ideas in my head but I finally settled on one. Voila!

As a quilter and a gardener I have many projects that I’m juggling. Although I’m not going to go into a great deal of detail discussing how I constructed this block, I do have a few tips that I would like to share with you. First I really want to recommend that you explore different ways of foundation piecing until you find what works for you. It's a very useful technique. If you are not already familiar with foundation piecing or are discouraged by foundation piecing I recommend that you check out the books below. Especially the Experts guide as you get multiple ideas about how to complete the same task. You can mix and match techniques until you find what works for you.

Experts' Guide to Foundation Piecing by Jane Hall (Editor)
Flying Colors: Design Quilts with Freeform Shapes & Flying Geese by Gail Garber

The first thing I had to do was decide on was how I wanted to map the values in this block design. In other words I had to decide where the dark, medium and light values should be placed in the design to give it the most visual movement. I opened up the PDF to the coloring page and I copy and saved it as an image file. I opened this file up in my Microsoft paint program and then I created a pallet of grays from light to dark including white and black that I used to create different ideas.

In the end, I decided not to veer too far away from what the designer offered. I just changed the values a little bit to give the design more bit more interest. Once I decided on the values that I would use in the design, I used a grayscale value finder to designate the value of each gray. I then used this information to go through my stash and find fabrics in similar values to use in my design.

To cut down on confusion regarding which rectangle was which in the foundation piecing of this block, I decided to assign each template piece an identity to help me keep track of what went where. I started with template piece A1 and named it the letter J. Then I named template piece B1 as the letter K and so on. I also created a copy of the block from the coloring page with all of this information written on it. This way I had a visual representation in front of me for quick reference.

The instructions for the pattern told us to tape together the six template sheets. I recommend that you do not cut this up for your foundation piecing but instead consider it your master draft for this work. You might need it to trace out additional units if you run into trouble constructing this block.

I then made a draft of the complete circle with all the units connected. The reason I did this was so that I could measure each unit and double check it against the suggested measurements given in the color placement key. I took a class with Gail Garber and She recommended that you measure the longest side of a triangle for the length of your rectangle and then the height using that side as your base. To this dimension she added one inch on all sides. This gave you plenty of room for foundation piecing so that you would not end up with a gap. She makes a point of saying that if you feel that this is a waste of fabric think about how you'll feel if you have to cut a second piece because you messed up the first one. The second image shows the dimension I used.

I traced my foundation pattern pieces from my draft of the circle onto freezer paper. I did this with the shiny side facing down or away from the surface closest to me. You can use a light box for this or tracing wheel. I highly recommend that you use freezer paper because this design has large pieces and they can flop around which can affect the amount of control you have on accuracy while you are foundation piecing. When I sewed unit C to unit B, I pressed the seam towards unit C as recommended in the directions but I noticed there was a large amount of bulk near the B1 unit. Therefore I decided to press the seam partially open to reduce the bolt.

I decided to use two fabrics in the background of my circle design even though I knew it would add to the challenge. sewing a one piece background to a circle is far easier than working with two partial circles. When you sew the background piece to the partial circle you want the background piece on top. You also want to make sure you offset slightly at the beginning and end to account for the quarter inch seam allowance.

Never clip the fabric unless you're working with a very tightly woven and dyed. Most fabric does not need to be snipped to stretch for a quarter inch seam. That's only something that is done and dressmaking when working with curve seams. To make it easier you can draw the quarter inch seam line on the wrong side of the background piece and only pin through that seam line when you pin the two pieces together. I left the freezer paper on the back of both partial circle pieces as I sewed the background pieces onto them. This helped with accuracy kept the circle fabric stationary as I manipulated the fabric on top.

Once you have sewn the background pieces to the partial circles you might notice some distortion along the diagonal. My solution to situations like this is to draw on my ironing board cover. I have a plain canvas or any word cover and the first thing I do after I wash it is draw two lines 6 inches apart the length of the ironing board. I can then place the completed partial block on the ironing board along that line and see where and by how much it is distorted. With a light steam and a touch I can persuade the fabric to follow a linear path.

If you are following the designer’s suggestion and using a two piece background, you might experience some difficulty making all the points match where unit E1 meets unit D1 along the perimeter of the circle. I use a technique called pinpoint precision to match those points. Here is a video link demonstrating how to do that. Pin Point Precision piecing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLYoQoiwFlU&t=39s

After I sewed those together I go back to my ironing board and make sure that that seam is straight once again before I press it to one side.

I wasn't sure if I was going to use two colors in the background or not when I started this block. Once I had the inner circle completed I placed it on top of the two color choices that I had and then I made my decision to go with a two color background

Now it was time to quilt it. I had Grand ideas about echo quilting the triangles but then I saw that the May block is a whole cloth quilted piece I decided to just use narrow channel quilting as the designer suggested but not as narrow. I stopped at a half inch spacing. I couldn't decide whether I wanted blue or green thread so I decided to use both an alternate colors. When I pick out thread for my quilting projects I try to find a value that can contrast equally on the lightest valued fabric in the block as it does on the darkest valued fabric.

I'm really happy with how this came out. I'm very excited that I learned a new technique because I have never matched a curve seam across a straight one that I can remember. I like the way this block looks with the other three. They feel like I solid group. I look forward to the May whole cloth block.

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NATIONAL QUILT MUSEUM * BLOCK OF THE MONTH

3/11/2021

16 Comments

N.Q.M. B.O.M. ROUND 3 - BLOCK 3

I can't believe that it's already March! That means we're on the third block for the National Quilt Museum block of the month Facebook group. In this blog I would like to share with you my thoughts about this block and how I decided to assemble it. Before we get started I'd like to show you my finished block. Tada!

My first thoughts when I saw this block was, wow that is gorgeous and dynamic and it looks like it'll be very challenging to sew. After perusing the directions that were provided I decided to forge my own path on how to construct this block. I used some of the information provided by the designer but I made some changes in the dimensions and the techniques that I would use to assemble it. I did this because it's what I knew I would be more comfortable. This may not work for you. You might be better off working with the directions given with the pattern. That being said if you are not an experienced quilter, then you will probably struggle with the pattern instructions because I did and I'm an experienced quilter.

Before we get sewing, we have to pick out fabrics. I decided to continue using the blue fabric that I've used in the previous two blocks. I added in one of the coordinates from the collection that I had also used in the previous blocks. I added another print from that collection that I had not used yet. to create unity. I decided that since the blue fabric was a medium value I would make the background a light value. These are my fabric choices.

Now getting down to the construction of this block; the first thing I did was print these templates out on freezer paper. I then drew in the 1/4" seam lines on the long sides of each template. Next I drafted in a 1/2" window down the center line of each so that I could ensure that the strip on my assembled unit had the proper placement. Carefully use your scissors to open that window. I felt that the window that the designer gave us was too big to achieve the accuracy that I desired.

As I followed along on the Facebook group page, I saw one of the problems that folks were running into was that the center unit, which is cut at 3" by 4", would come up a little short once you stitched it and flipped it over. So I cut that unit at 3" by 4 1/8". That way when you stitch it and flip it over it covers the whole unit.

My next decision was to increase the width of all of the 1" wide strips to 1 1/8". This is a trick I learned from making many Seminole strip quilts. For any strip that is 1" or narrower, it is best to cut the strip 1/8" wider than needed. The idea is that after you sew the strip on one side, the remaining raw edge could be a little bit off from human error. This small amount of human error is not noticeable on wider strips but it can become obvious on narrower strips. If you trim the raw edge to the finished with plus a quarter inch seam, you will only have that human error variable on one side of the strip.

For example, on our project we are working with a half inch finished strip down the center of the unit so therefore once one side has been stitched down the visible amount of strip will be 3/4" wide when trimmed. Here's a picture to demonstrate.

After all of the three strip subunits have been constructed, I proceeded to attach them to the freezer paper templates that I created using my iron. The wrong side of the unit goes to the shiny side of the freezer paper template. Use the half inch window to make sure that your unit is aligned properly. The top of the template should line up with the raw edge of the unit. You might have less than a 1/4" seam at the bottom but that should not be a problem.

Here's a little tip I will give you about working with freezer paper, take a sticky lint brush to your ironing board cover to remove any lint before proceeding. Also when you touch the iron to the freezer paper, try to only heat up the parts that are attaching to your fabric units. I have had experiences in the past where the wax picked up so much lint from my ironing board that it didn't want to stick to the fabric piece that it should stick to.

Now sew center rectangle to these units sewing on the seam line. Don’t forget to shorten up your stitch length when you're doing foundation piecing. It shouldn't be too so small that you can't get the tip of your seam ripper under it but it should not be your normal stitch length for piecing. You need it to perforate the paper so that it tears off easily. When you are don, you need to trim off the extra fabric on the long sides of each unit even with the edge of the paper.

This is where I veer off from the instructions given by the designer. Instead of sewing the 10-in long strips to one side of each short wedge unit, I sewed both strips to the long wedge unit. Another tip that I will give you is whenever possible so towards the point not away from it. Attach one 10" strip to one side of the long wedge unit, press it away from the unit and then trim the extra that continues past the point off so that it is a continuation of the other long side of the long wedge unit as shown in this picture below.

Now so the second strip to the long wedge unit, from the outside edge towards the point. Press that out also and then use your ruler to trim each strip to be 3/4" wide. you won't see a lot come off but just remember that however much you were off on this side you will probably be off on the other side which means that that would be doubled.

This is the part that's really important if you want to have the center triangles be aligned perfectly. Trim the tops of the strips to be a continuation of the top edge of the corner unit template as shown in the picture below.

If you're a person who can notice when something is off by a 1/6" then I recommend that you trim a 1/16" off of the short wedge template top.

Now it's time to join the short wedge units to the long wedge unit. To do this accurately you would line up the outside edge where the quarter inch seam meets the edge of the strip. Here are a couple of pictures, from the front and back, to show you what I mean. If you sew the short wedges to the long wedge in this fashion then the center element will result in all of the edge of the center element being even. Once you're done sewing those seams press the short wedge units away from the strip. Here’s a front and back view of what that looks like.

I pressed all of my seams underneath my narrow strips because the value of my strips was darker than the neighboring unit. If your strips are a lighter value than the neighboring unit you might want to press the seams away from the narrow strips

Now that you have a quadrant completed, you need to check that the two sides adjacent to the center corner are at 90° to each other. Lay your rotary ruler on top of the unit and if it has a diagonal line, place that line along the center of the middle strip. Slide the ruler towards or away from the center corner until it is even with the two adjacent sides of your quadrant and trim. If you do this now you will not end up with a witch's hat. You can lay your units out and see if they meet perfectly as shown in this picture below.

When you are sure that all of your quadrants are at a perfect 90° angle you can sew the 8 1/2" strips to one side of a quadrant. Once you have done this and pressed the strip away from the quadrant you will again trim that strip to 3/4" wide. Repeat this with one more quadrant on the opposite side of the block. Once you are done with that, sew two quadrants to together and press the same open.

Wow look at you you're almost finished! Now so the long strip to one half of your block. Press that away from the half of the block and trim it to three quarters in wide.

Now so the other half of your block to that strip and voila you are done!

Thank you for reading my blog. I hope that this information is useful and if not I hope that, at the least, you are entertained by this peak inside of how my brain operates. Have a great day folks! Happy quilting!

16 Comments

NATIONAL QUILT MUSEUM * BLOCK OF THE MONTH

2/22/2021

3 Comments

N.Q.M. B.O.M. ROUND 3 - Block 2

Like I said before, as if I don’t already have enough projects going, I’ve decided to take part in the block of the month program that is being hosted by the National Quilt Museum on Facebook. Here is my finished block for the second part of the block of the month program. I am not a pictorial quilter by nature so I was not super excited about this block at first but I finally wrapped my mind around it and this is the result.

Another aspect of this block that didn’t align with me was that I was put off by the free cutting of curves and trying to blindly match them back together again. My background is in dressmaking and we rely heavily upon notches or hash marks that we use to match up seams. If one does not accurately match a curved seam line you end up with pleats and wrinkles as many of you have experience. After giving it some thought I decided to create this block using techniques that I was comfortable with and felt we're more technically accurate. It's in my nature to pay attention to the details.

The first thing I did was break out some paper and draft a square that was 14 in. I then used the golden ratio to decide where the horizon would be. After that I again applied the golden ratio to find the shoreline. If you've never worked with the golden ratio I recommend that you spend afternoon googling it and learning about how it can improve the visual impact of your art work.

Then I broke out my flexible ruler. I used to do a lot of pattern making when I made clothes and I invested in a curve ruler to help me with drafting a sleeve that matched the armhole of a bodice. I started with a curved line in the sky to create the illusion of hazy horizon line clearing out to the broader sky. The location for this line was also found using the golden ratio. For the rest of the curved lines in the water I used the same curve that I used in the sky but flipped it and rotated it each time so that it was a new iteration of the original curve.

Next I drafted the shoreline and the layers of the beach by giving the ruler a gentle tug so that the curved line used along the shoreline and the beach would be a gentler version of the same curve used in the water and the sky. This acts as a repeat on a theme which helps to increase the visual impact of the design. When I was done I drew registration marks at the peaks and valleys and halfway between those on all the curves. I then used my flexible ruler to trace off patterns of these same curves and add a quarter inch seam allowance at the same time because the ruler is quarter inch wide.

For my palette I fished through my stash of hand dyed fabrics that I had created and I utilized a couple of my focus fabrics to keep the theme consistent. Here is my selection of fabrics.

I used each pattern piece to cut the fabrics for this block. As I did I used transfer paper to mark the seam line and the registration marks on the wrong side of the fabric. Having visible seam lines was helpful so that when I pinned the fabrics together I was able to take a very small bite of fabric right on the seam line. This helps to achieve accuracy when sewing the two curves together. It's very effective for avoiding pleats.

After piecing the whole thing together I hung it on a wall and looked at it and tried to decide what I wanted to add to the scene. I decided that I didn't want anything added to the scene because I thought that the curved lines along with the circle for the moon/sun looked like an abstract interpretation of the beach. And then use my walking foot to add echo quilting to enhance the piece. I'm very happy with how my block turned out.

I'm looking forward to seeing what block is next in the for this block of the month quilt. I'm having a lot of fun!

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National Quilt Museum * Block of the Month

1/19/2021

4 Comments

N.Q.M. B.O.M. Round 3 - Block 1

As if I don’t already have enough projects going, I’ve decided to take part in the block of the month program that is being hosted by the National Quilt Museum on Facebook. What can I say the first block, a set in circle, looked like it would be fun to make and I decided to give a whirl?

I've seen comments from folks asking how people put together fabrics that they're going to use for this block of the month. This is my selection of fabrics for round three. I started with a collection of fabrics that I had procured many years ago when I worked at a fabric store. I'll never admit to how many years they have been in my stash. Finally they're being put to use!

The first image shows the focus fabrics that I had from that collection. I went through my stash and pulled out all the blender and tonal fabrics that I had that went with the colors representative of this collection. The result of this is the second image.

My next step was to go through my stash and pull out any other prints that might compliment the blenders and tonals that I had gathered together. You can see this in the first image. The second image shows all the multi colored prints that I have gathered for this project.

I’ll probably add more fabrics to my palette of fabrics before I get to the last block. It doesn’t matter how much fabric we have in our stash we can always use more light and dark valued fabrics to make block designs pop.

If you are going to take part in this project, I have some advice that I'd like to share with you. First, if you've never done a set in circle or you haven't made one in a while, you should watch some videos on YouTube about this technique before attempting it. I also recommend that you have a stylus to help you manipulate the top layer of the circle as you sew. I like to use a large porcupine quill. It's not only much more versatile than other stylus options it's also pretty cool having an 8" porcupine quill in your possession.

Next, this BOM quilt is a quilt as you go project. So if you do decide to take part in the BOM be sure to extend the dimensions of your block by at least an 1" to compensate for the shrinking that happens when you quilt.

Finally, after your done quilting you're going to want to bury your thread ends. The best tool for making this job enjoyable, yes I said enjoyable, is a spiral eye needle. This makes it quicker to thread the needle when you bury the stitches. You can find one on Google if you search. Also there are lots of videos on YouTube that show you how to bury your thread ends.

I hope that you feel inspired by this post. Please let me know what you’re working on or are looking forward to working on.

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A New Perspective on Quilting- Quilting with Jose Part 1

10/5/2018

2 Comments

Quilting with Jose – A New Perspective on Quilting

Last year I had the pleasure of helping my daughter’s boyfriend, Jose, to create a baby quilt for his sister’s baby. Jose is a real renaissance man. He can sew, fix cars, build motorized bicycles and improve our camping experience to almost glamorous levels. He can do almost anything he wants without help from me. So when he came to me to ask for help making a bay quilt for his new nephew, I was flattered.
I explained the basics to him about color and value and showed him how to use my Electric Quilt program (EQ). To keep things simple I recommended a rail fence pattern but to keep it interesting I suggested a four rail fence block.
Next I suggested that he use a color palette that included warm & cool colors and contrasting colors. We both agreed that this combination would make for a stimulating quilt for a child to look at. Jose decided that he liked purple and orange. So we added in the complement for purple which is yellow and the complement for orange which would be blue. To help lessen the intense vibration hat complementary colors can create I recommended that Jose use a cool orange to complement the warm blue and a cool purple to complement the warm yellow.
Here was Jose’s first idea for the design. We both agreed that the yellow and orange zig zags competed too much with each other.

So Jose decided to keep the yellow fence and use blue for his other fence. Which we both liked a lot.

Now that he had decided on the color palette I let him go through my stash to find fabrics that matched the EQ representation of the design. Here is the final quilt.

We had so much fun that we intend to make another quilt together for one of his friend’s baby girl. So stay tuned for more quilting with Jose.

Thanks for visiting my blog and happy quilting to you! Janice

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QUILTMAKER'S BLOG TOUR - 100 DESIGNER BLOCKS VOL. 16

11/17/2017

130 Comments

Block # 1553 Crossroad Pyramids

Hello my quilting friends and welcome to another stop on The Quilting Company's Quiltmaker 100 Block Road Rally Blog Tour! I'm glad you have managed to travel this far and come visit my blog. I hope you're not too dusty from your travels. Here's my block, Crossroad Pyramids. I’m very excited to have a block featured in Volume 16 of Quiltmakers 100 Block Challenge!

I'm also excited to tell you that you can become the proud owner of your very own copy of this wonderful resource courtesy of the folks at Quiltmaker. I hope you're as excited as I am. Please read to the end to find out how you can get your copy. This offer has ended. Congratulations to Renee A.!

The inspiration for this block is fairly obvious, it’s the pyramids of Giza found in Egypt. I’ve always have been fascinated with Egypt ever since the King Tutankhamun exhibit came through the United states when I was a kid.

As usual I turned to my trusty EQ quilt design software to get things started and the block below on the left is what I came up with. Then I took another look at the block and I wondered what would happen if I used striped fabric in the place of the medium value. The block below on the right is the result. I rotated the stripe so that they all met in the middle. Now that things were moving along nicely it was time to pick out some fabrics to use.

I dug out a bunch of directional and striped fabrics from my stash to audition for the block. It was important to consider the scale of the printed fabric in relation to the size of the finished unit. The block wouldn't look the way I intended if the texture of the print is too large to fit into the finished unit.

To help me make that decision I had to cut an audition window from a piece of white paper at the finished size. Since this was going to be a 12” block the unit's the finished size would be 1 ½” x 1 ½”. Here are the contestants for the block as seen through the audition window.

As you can see some of the other choices would have worked out well others not so well. I decided to use the brown stripe for the block. If you use a stripe it’s important to starch the heck out of the fabric before cutting into it. This will help you to control the bias. If working on the bias freaks you out then try to find a stripe that is printed on the diagonal. That way the sides of the square will be on the straight grain when you cut your units out.

Let’s talk some more about scale. I knew that I would need to make up a baby quilt for a shower this past July. I decided to use this block, made at a larger size, for the quilt. My idea was that the block would be enlarged to 40” x 40”, which gave me a finished unit size of 5” x 5” for the square containing the stripe. Let’s go back and see what these fabrics would look like in a 5” square unit. I cut both a 5” and 1 ½” square so that you could see the difference between the two at the same time.

I decided to use the pink wavy stripe for the baby quilt. Even though it’s not a true linear image I thought it would make a funky quilt for a bay to stare at. I even did a mock up of the quilt in EQ before making the quilt. Here they both are; the EQ representation and the finished quilt.

Alright now that we have gone over all the choices for the stripe and I’ve shown you the finished quilt, let’s talk about turning this into a rectangular quilt. If you add a row of Flying Geese across opposite ends of the quilt/block we end up with a lovely rectangular design. It’s just that easy!

Now let’s travel a little farther down the road and see what else we can do with this design. Here is the design using a palette of purple tonals and blenders from the EQ library. The first design, starting on the left, uses just three values. If we add some gradient values of purple, for the wings of the geese, to the palette we can get a gradient affect starting with dark valued center and lighter values when we get to the outer edges. The last example shows the reverse gradient.

Alright, you have traveled with me this far, how about one more variation of what you can do with this block. Here’s a four block quilt shown in the purple palette. One has the three valued block and the other uses the gradient block option. Both quilts have sahing to set off the blocks.

Well, I hope you found this blog interesting. For a chance to win a copy of Quiltmakers 100 Block Challenge Volume 15, please leave me a comment below. Let me know how you feel about working with fabric cut on the bias or what you think of my post. I always try to respond to comments but there are so many during the blog tour that I don’t always accomplish my goal. So please forgive me in advance.

I’d also appreciate it if you would visit my Facebook page and click like. Also, please consider signing up for my email list. I promise that the email list is for my use only. I send out emails when I have something exciting to share with you, like a new blog post or a free pattern. This offer has ended. Congratulations to Renee A.! Thank you for visiting!

Happy Quilting, Janice

130 Comments

QUILTMAKER'S 100 DESIGNER BLOCKS VOL. 16

11/13/2017

6 Comments

ROAD RALLY BLOG TOUR FOR VOL. 16 START'S TODAY!

Today is the start of the Quiltmaker Road Rally Blog Tour! For more information about the Road Rally check out their blog at Quilty Pleasures. Be sure to visit them every day as they will be featuring different blocks each day and giving away lots of goodies. Please be sure to come back here on Friday, November 17, 2017. That's my featured block day. On Friday I will tell you how you can become the proud owner of a copy Quiltmaker's 100 Blocks Volume 16.

Have a great day and happy quilting! Janice

6 Comments

FREE PATTERN FRIDAY - OCTOBER 2017 - WHIRLPOOLS

10/20/2017

3 Comments

Hello Quilting Friends,

Here is the next offering for my special give away, Free Pattern Friday. I am offering this pattern for free and it will be available until I post the next one. Then it's gone! So make sure you get your copy.

You may also want to sign up for my mailing list. That way you’ll never miss an update to my blog. I promise never to sell your name to anyone. I will only ever use it to let you know about what’s going on at my website.

Here is this month’s free pattern, Whirlpools. This design was originally published in Quiltmaker magazine for May/June 2016. Click on either of the images below if you would like to read about how this design was developed.

In this blog I want to discuss value some more. I want to talk about why it’s important to have the right combination of fabrics values for your quilt design. By taking the extra time to find the right fabric values for your design you will be able to make a quilt that has the right amount of contrast between the light, medium and dark fabrics so that the finished design has the good visual movement.

If the values are too close between adjoining patch work pieces then the design will be washed out. You will lose part of the visual element that would have created the movement within your design. For the Whirlpools quilt design you need three values of Blue; light, medium and dark plus a green and a white accent. All three of the blue fabrics come in contact with each other therefore good contrast is very important.

In the sample below we have the original block with the correct amount of contrast between the three blues. There is enough definition for you to see the visual movement that I desired. You can see new elements come to life when the blocks are joined and rotated.

Now let’s make the medium blue a bit lighter in value than it is and see what happens when we look at the quilt. As I see it, the loss of contrast between the medium and light blue patch work pieces affects the motif that is created at the center of four blocks when they are joined. As you can see the element isn’t as defined as it was when the medium blue was a deeper value. We also lose the dynamic between the medium blue and the green accent fabric.

If we make the medium blue even lighter, we completely lose the element where the four blocks join and therefore the reason for having a medium value in the first place. The same is true in relation to the pairing of the medium blue with the green accent. You almost can’t tell the light blue from the medium.

Here is a comparison of the three examples as you would see them in the finished quilt. This should drive home the importance of good value contrast.

There are tools that will help you to discern the value of a fabric. You need a color filter and a gray scale value card. The color filters come in green and red. You use the red filter when working with cool colors and the green when you are working with warm colors. Since most of us work with a combination of the two, you will probably want to have both filters.

As you look at the fabric through the filter you place the value card near the fabric and move it around the values until you find the one that matches yours. The great thing about working with these tools is that eventually you will start to discern the value of the fabric without the red or green filter. I have these tools available at my ETSY shop for purchase. Click here to visit my shop.

I hope you’re excited and feeling inspired by my post and the pattern I have offered you. I can’t wait to see what your version will look like! Please send me a photo of it when you have completed yours. And don’t forget to leave a comment. You can find the link for this pattern below.

Please share this pattern with your friends by giving them the link so that they can visit my website and download it themselves. I've worked hard to give you this gift, so I kindly ask that you do not copy this pattern in hard copy or as a digital file.

I hope you have a happy day full of quilting! Namaste my quilting friend, Janice

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FREE PATTERN FRIDAY - AUGUST 2017 - BLUE WILLOW QUILT DESIGN

8/18/2017

1 Comment

Hello Quilting Friends,

Here is the next offering for my special give away, Free Pattern Friday. I am offering this pattern for free and it will be available until I post the next one. Then it's gone! So make sure you get your copy. You may also want to sign up for my mailing list. That way you’ll never miss an update to my blog. I promise never to sell your name to anyone. I will only ever use it to let you know about what’s going on at my website.

Here is this month’s free pattern, Blue Willow. This design was originally published in Fons & Porter's Love of Quilting March/April 2014 issue. In this blog I want to discuss the importance of value placement within your design. An understanding of value placement will help you to make a quilt that has the light, medium and dark fabrics where they need to be to achieve the look that you desire.

This quilt was made with fabric from Quilting Treasures Blue Moon collection. This group was great to work with because it consisted of a full scale of 10 values from light to dark. This was accomplished through the clever distribution of the texture used in the motif of each fabric print. The visual texture was achieved with blue printed onto white fabric.

Usually I work with a standard grey scale progression from black through a variety of greys to white when I design. Whenever I work on a new design I always consider value placement carefully. The placement of light and dark is what creates the pattern that our eyes perceive. I can’t stress enough how wonderful it was to work with a group of fabrics where someone took the time to create a near perfect progression of printed fabric textures ranging from light to dark.

For this design I used 10 values (10 fabrics) in total. It may seem like a lot of fabrics to gather together, but when you see what it looks like with less values you’ll understand why you will want to take the time to collect all the values you’ll need to complete this quilt as designed. I’ll go through a few variations where I decrease the number of fabrics used so that you can understand how more values (fabrics) can improve the look of a design.

The original design uses 10 values. I’ll start by changing the binding to match the last border. It may seem like a little thing to change but having a binding that contrasts with the last border adds a nice accent to the overall design. The next thing I’ll tweak are the light valued fabrics. In this design there are three light valued fabrics. I’m going to replace two of them with the third. This results in a design that uses 7 different values. Here is a look at both the original design and the new variation. I’ve also included a close up for detail.

Next I’ll tinker with the medium values used in the interior of the quilt. There is a swirl and a floral used to frame the light value portions. I’m going to change the floral one to match the swirl. I’m still using the floral in the border but not the interior. This creates a flatter image. The depth created by the use of the second medium valued fabric is missing. Here is the result below.

The design has two dark fabrics used in the blocks that create depth just like the medium valued fabric did. I’m going to remove the second dark fabric and use only one dark fabric in the design. We are now down to 7 values used in the interpretation of this design. Here is what that looks like.

Finally I’ll change the tile motif in the middle of the block to match the inner border. Now we are down to 6 values used in the design. I think that the design loses some of its sparkle when the palette is pared down to almost half of the number we started with. Here’s the result. You can decide for yourself how it makes you feel when less fabrics are used to interpret the design.

I hope you’re excited and feeling inspired by this pattern I have offered you. I can’t wait to see what your version will look like! Please send me a photo of it when you have completed yours. And don’t forget to leave a comment. That way I know I’m not alone here. : )

This pattern is available from download from my ETSY Shop. Click here to purchase this pattern.

I hope you have a happy day full of quilting! Namaste my quilting friend, Janice

1 Comment

FREE PATTERN FRIDAY - JUNE 2017 - OVER UNDER QUILT DESIGN

6/16/2017

2 Comments

Hello Quilting Friends,

Here is the next offering for my special give away, Free Pattern Friday. Once a month, on a Friday, I will make a pattern available as a free PDF download. The pattern will be available until I post the next one. Then it's gone! So make sure you download your copy today.

You may also want to sign up for my mailing list. That way you’ll never miss an update to my blog. I promise never to sell your name to anyone. I will only ever use it to let you know about what’s going on at my website.

This month’s design was originally created for Fons & Porter’s Easy Quilts fall 2014. If you’d like to read my original blog post for this design click here.

The original design was a 46” x 62” lap sized quilt. I decided to scale it down to a crib sized quilt measuring 40” x 54”. I got rid of the extra row of blocks across the length and width. I like this smaller size better. It feels like a better size for a small child to drag around. I feel that it’s important for a child to actually enjoy the quilt that a loved one made for them. Rather than having it hung on the wall as a decoration. Let me know what your feelings are on this subject, if you please.

When this design was originally published Fons & Porter deemed this design to be a great choice for their Quilts for Kids program because meets all of their guidelines. Plus it’s quick to make. The best part is that the yardages are relatively small. So you probably have all of the fabrics that you need in your stash. Better still because this design uses 2.5" wide units it's perfect for precuts!

I made a new version of this quilt for the daughter of a friend of mine. I invited him to choose the colors. He and his wife decided on green & purple. I decided to use black as the background color to set off the bright colors. My friend is a tattoo artist so I felt he and his wife would appreciate the avant-garde coloring of the baby quilt, which they did.

I want to show you how different this design can look when you change the value placement. Each of the following variations are shown with their corresponding greyscale value placement map. These maps will help you to identify what values you should use for each part of the block. They also will help show you how to arrange the blocks for each layout. The yardages shouldn't be too different but I would buy a little extra just to be safe.