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FREE PATTERN FRIDAY - MAY 2017 - Panel Quilt DESIGN

5/12/2017

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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.

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This month’s design was created to find a way to make use of a beautiful panel I bought at a quilt show. The panel features The Flower Fairies of Cicely Mary Barker (CMB). Which are fairies that represent different trees and flowers. Cicely Mary Barker first published her fairies starting in 1923. Since then they have taken on a life of their own and their popularity continues today. You can learn more about Cicely Mary Barker by visiting her Wikipedia page. If you’d like to learn more about her Flower Fairies and become a part of the online community, click here to visit the webpage.

I’ve been a fan of CMB and her Flower Fairies since I first learned about them back in the eighties. I have acquired a few collectibles featuring her fairies over the years. At some point I started to come across CMB Flower Fairies printed on quilting cotton. These were repeated prints of various motifs and scales. The Flower Fairy fabrics are printed by Michael Miller Fabrics and have a lovely coordinating blender group known as Fairy Frost. Click here to see their collections.

I also noticed the Flower Fairy panels that were being sold in my local quilt shops. I’ve been tempted to buy one but I didn’t want to deal with the challenge of finding a good design layout for using the panel. The patterns available that I had seen for using panels didn’t appeal to me for one reason or another. I can’t explain it, they just didn’t do it for me. So I knew that I would have to come up with my own design if I bought a panel, therefore I never bought one.

Then one day I came upon the Night Fairies. Oh be still my heart, I loved the colors and had to have it! So now I was the proud owner of a panel and had to find a nice simple yet effective design for this panel. I didn’t want to get too crazy with the extra components. So I decided to add a column of small blocks to the sides of the panel to give a bit more width.
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My panel was the full width of the fabric, 42” long and 21” wide. I decided that I should start by adding coping strips to the top and the bottom of the panel to increase the length to a length that would be equal to the multiple of the size of the border blocks.

Let me break that down for you. I knew I wanted a small sized block for the block border that I planned to place alongside the panel. I decided to use a 5” block for the border assembly. If I divide 42 by 5, the sum is 8 with a remainder of 2. Now I needed to round up to the next whole number and make it 45. When I divide 45 by 5 I get 9. So that means I will need nine blocks at 5” square for both block borders. Since there are two block borders I need a total of 18 blocks.

The coping border strips that I would add to the top & bottom of the panel would increase the length to match the 45” measurement I came up with. There is more information and an explanation of this calculation in the pattern.

You can use any block you want but I decided that since I was dealing with frolicking fairies, I wanted a ribbon border. I almost sure that the frolicking fairies were asking for a ribbon border and I was able to hear them. A mock ribbon border is created when you join what I call “envelope” blocks together as shown below. As you can see every other block is rotated 180 degrees so that the small light valued triangles meet.
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I created my ribbon border to look as if it was a light and medium valued ribbon laying on a dark background. You can create an alternate look by switching the placement of the values in the ribbon. By rotating the blocks to have the small dark triangles meet you get the opposite result; a dark and medium valued ribbon laying on a light background.
The key to the success of an illusion of a ribbon is in keeping the values of the ribbon triangles close to each other and separate, visually, from the background. I’m working with three values; light, medium and dark. To give the ribbon visual continuity I needed to use the dark & medium values together or the light & medium values together as shown in the examples above.

If you try to make the ribbon from the light & dark values and place it on the medium background they fight with each other and you lose the visual illusion of a ribbon. Check out these examples below. They’re not horrible but I think the other examples above look better.

Now let’s play! I’m going to show you how this looks using a really cute Halloween collection called Creepy Hollow from Quilting Treasures. Here are two examples that demonstrate both ribbon border value placements. As with the original Fairy Frolic design I used fabric for the panel coping strips that matched the rest of the inner border fabric.

The panel for this collection does continue from one selvedge edge to the other but the main parts of the design fill a smaller area than the fairy panel. Therefore it looks as if another fabric had been added to the panel along with the panel coping borders to give it the right length. I think it looks really cute! If you like it too and are looking for Creepy Hollow fabric here is a link to Google shopping for the collection.
Continuing with this discussion of the coping borders, I want to point out that the fabric you use for that part of the design does not have to match the fabric used for the inner borders. Also, if your panel is shorter than my fairy panel you would resolve this by cutting the coping borders at a wider dimension. The calculation for this is included in the pattern.

The coping strips in these two examples are occupied by dancing skeletons on an orange background. In both of these the coping border is cut very wide to compensate for the lack of length in the panel design. Once again I’m showing two examples that demonstrate both ribbon border value placements. First the dark & medium values together and then the light & medium values together.
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. That way I know I’m not alone here. : ) You can find the link for this pattern below.
 
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

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QUILTMAKER'S BLOG TOUR - 100 DESIGNER BLOCKS VOL. 15

5/4/2017

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Block # 1412         Mock Maltese Cross

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Hello Quilting friends! Welcome to my blog for the Quiltmaker Road Rally! Here's my block, Mock Maltese Cross. I’m very excited to have a block featured in Volume 15 of Quiltmakers 100 Block Challenge!

I'm super excited this time because my block is on the cover! You can see it to the left of the list of names, at the very top. To celebrate I will be giving away a copy of the issue. I'll also be giving away a second copy 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 ended midnight Sunday, May 7.

Congratulations to our winners Luiza G. from Brazil & Terri N. from Iowa, USA.

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The folks at Quiltmaker will be featuring different blocks each day. They will also have some great daily prizes and a grand prize drawing at the end of the tour. Click here to visit their Quilty Pleasures blog and learn more.

I want to share the story of my block with you. I belong to a quilt guild called the Connecticut Piecemakers and every year we have a pot holder exchange at our Christmas holiday luncheon. We make either a holiday themed pot holder or one themed for everyday use. I chose to make a holiday pot holder. When I started to think about a design I thought of poinsettias.

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I began by doing a block search for a poinsettia block in my Electric Quilt software (EQ). I found ten choices in my search. The one I chose comes from the Block Base software I purchased from Electric Quilt Company. The block reminded me of Iron cross. The only problem was I was not about to attempt to piece it with a square in the middle as it was shown. No way! I haven't got that kind of patience. I figured I could find an easier way to do it. I really like foundation piecing because of the accuracy that can be achieved. So I altered to the block to suit my needs.
To convert the block I started by setting up my worktable drawing set up with a block size of 6 inches and 48 snap points. I then set the grid to 2 blocks horizontal and vertical. For Snapping Options, I made sure that the “snap to grid points on worktable” button and the “snap to nodes off drawing” button were on.

I selected the block for editing and then clicked the “Easy Draw” tab to edit the block. I then deleted the square in the middle that I didn’t like. I’m only going to work with one quarter of the block so I converted the rest of the lines into guides. Next I converted two of the lines in the point to guides.

I then used the “shape” tool to extend the remaining line to the edge of the block while trying to maintain the same angle as the original point. To do this turn off the “snap to grid points on worktable” button. The reason I did this is because I needed the pattern to be compatible to foundation piecing.

Next I connected the nodes with a line to create the other side of the point. I also added a diagonal line across the points where the square used to be. I then used the “shape” tool to stretch one of the lines on the point heading towards the center. This was also done to facilitate foundation piecing.

Now it was time to complete the block. I clicked “select all’ and opened up the “Symmetry box”. Next I clicked “Clone” and rotated the selection 90 degrees. I then carefully placed the selection so that it connected with the previous image at the node.

Then I zoomed in to center of the block so that I could make sure that the two images had indeed connected at the node. I repeated this step two more times to fill the remaining two quadrants. To complete the block add a horizontal and vertical line to delineate the four quarters. Then I colored the block. I started with a value placement similar to the original block.

Next I played around with the placement of values. I tried out a few variations before making my final choice.
Now that I had made my final decision about value placement it was time to pick out colors.

After I was done I started to realize that my block looked like an Iron cross. I decided to look up the Iron cross on Wikipedia to find out more about the symbol. While reading about its origins I came across a statement that said “It was ultimately derived from the cross pattée occasionally used by the Teutonic Order from the 13th century.” Well what the heck is a “cross pattee” I said to myself? Of course being the history geek that I am, I had to look up “cross pattee” and find out more about this symbol. It was pretty interesting so I’ll attach links for both web pages to the images of the crosses below.

As I was trying to think of a name for my block decided against using the name “Iron Cross” because it has negative connotations. As for calling the block “cross pattee” I wasn’t too keen with the idea either. If a history geek like me had never encountered the word before I didn’t think it would resonate with folks. So I went out on a limb and named it Maltese cross variation even though it doesn’t look exactly like a Maltese cross. My block is a bit of a mix between the two. Just like the cross pattee, on my block, the ends of the four cross points are flat. Yet instead of the sides of the cross points being concave, the sides on my block are straight, just like a Maltese cross.

I have a couple of books that are great resources for quilt block information and ideas; 1000 Great Quilt Blocks by Maggi McCormack Gordon and the Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilt Patterns by Barbara Brackman.  The poinsettia block I started with came from the Brackman book. EQ used this book as a reference for their Block Base software. In the 1000 Great Quilt blocks book my block resembles their idea of a Maltese cross. It seems that my interpretation isn’t that far off.
Getting back to the quilt block I want to show you a layout in a queen size with four different color variations. I used a 12” block, in a 6 block x 7 block layout, with a 1.25” inner border and 4” outer border. It finishes at 82.5” x 94.5”.

Well, I hope you found this blog interesting. For one chance to win a copy of Quiltmakers 100 Block Challenge Volume 15, please leave me a comment below. Let me know what you like to read about and 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.

For a second chance to win a copy of this issue you can sign up for my emails and/or visit my Facebook page and click like. I really appreciate your support. I promise that the email list is 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 promotion will run until midnight on Monday, May 8, then I will pick two names at random. Thank you for visiting! 

Happy Quilting, Janice


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Quiltmaker's 100 Designer blocks Vol. 15

5/1/2017

28 Comments

 

Road Rally Blog Tour for Vol. 15 Starts 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 everyday as they will be featuring different blocks each day and giving away lots of goodies. Please be sure to come back here on Thursday May 4, 2017. That's my featured block day. On Thursday I will tell you how you can become the proud owner of Quiltmaker's 100 Blocks Volume 15. But wait, there's more... My block is on the cover of this issue! in honor of this momentous occasion I will be giving away two copies if this amazing resource.

Have a great day and happy quilting! Janice

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    Janice  Averill
    West Haven, Connecticut, United states

    Welcome to my Blog! This is where I'll share my thoughts about quilting with you. I'll post pictures and talk about designing quilts and construction techniques. I'll also post things that inspire me. Please leave a comment and let me know that you came by for a visit..

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