 For years, tulips have been my favorite flower. They have such elegant long stems and leaves. A group of tulip stems, with buds not yet opened, arching over in a gentle curve, creates a lovely sight. I’m fascinated by how they can be so pretty in the simplest of shapes with a single color, or have big multicolored and striped petals with ruffled and fringed edges. I am so happy to share some images of the new group coming in Spring 2022, Tulip Tango.  Imagine those flowers saying, “it is time to put on our flowing dresses and dance”. And not just any dance, but one where they are the star of the show in rich color and graceful, dramatic shapes. Big luscious blooms in the main prints show off on cream/linen, cranberry, olive/chartreuse green, princess pink and the dark shaddow gray.  The little dots that are in the backgrounds of the main prints also found their way into my Thatched backgrounds, making a new "Dotty Thatched" that has a little extra layer of whimsy and play. Those dots carry through into little bits of background in the paisley print, love butterflies with tulilps, tiny tulips and swirling leaves coordinates.    Here is a peek at the paisley print with arcs of tulips blooming inside the shapes. The swirling leaves, seen in the center of the tulip block above, mimics the graceful arch of stems and those long elegant leaves. I love using the swirling leaves on bindings where I cut it across the leaves to give an organic striped look to the edges of the quilt.  With tulip fabric, I had to design a tulip quilt! These blocks are my samples to try out my long leaves and stitch-and-flip blooms. I'll share more pictures in the next post of this Tulip Season quilt design. The other new quilts are called Tightrope and Criss Cross Kisses.  Normal mix of precuts coming: Layer Cake, Charm Pack, Jelly Roll, Mini Charms, Fat Eighth and Fat Quarter bundles. Each of my three new quilt patterns can use a Layer Cake vs the Fat Quarters or Jelly Roll they are specified with. And of course yardage for backgrounds. The Dotty Thatched in cranberry, shaddow, chartreuse, sprig, washed linen and cream match the color families of regular Thatched in those shades. That also means that the Thatched 108" widebacks of cream, washed linen and shaddow are a perfect match for quilt backings.   Tulip Tango will be shipping from Moda Fabrics to quilt shops in Spring of 2022, hopefully in April. Just in time for springtime blooming!
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 Did you know a lot of my florals live on both fabric AND calendars? I've been creating artwork for Sellers Publishing for over 10 years! And I love it when a fabric line floral from Moda Fabrics also makes it as my cover girl! These are a couple of my crossover favorites. Painted Meadow coneflowers and big fat bumble bees were on the 2020 wall calendar and the 2021 daily calendar.  Sweet Peas from 2019 became my Sweet Pea & Lily collection in sweet purple shades.  This year's 2021 wall calendar had my sunflowers from my Moda Solana collection blooming brightly! I also had a fabric panel with the Helen Keller quote about sunflowers that is the first image in the calendar.  And a little Carolina Lily beauty to look forward to this October. These lilies should be arriving in quilt shops this November. What a lovely way to enjoy the fall season! Just in case you didn't see it, Calendar Club Canada has a giveaway that closes tomorrow. You have an opportunity to win a 2022 daily calendar and a Sew Happy tote or zipper pouch and charm pack of Carolina Lilies! Hop over to their facebook page https://www.facebook.com/CalendarClub/ or instagram @calendarclubca to enter!   Curves and squares grow into striking modern blooms in this geometric garden. This is Mod Flower Box, ready to bloom upon your wall.  This version on the chair is made with Carolina Lilies. This collection is scheduled to ship to shops in November 2021 and features spotted lilies, paisley prints, vines and ferns. Rich teal and green colors mix with spicy reds and peach tones reminiscent of my Painted Meadow collection.  The wall/lap quilt in Carolina Lilies uses Thatched Soft Black 152 for the background and borders in Thatched Lagoon 199 (the teal color) and Dashed lines 48705-21 in Teal. The flowers and leaves are made from one Charm Pack of 5" squares.  Another option for making this quilt is using Fat Eighths. The Thatched version on the wall uses a mix of 14 Fat Eighths, with 9 for flowers and 5 for leaves. For this version, I wanted to emphasize the corners and really play with the spaces left from the curved blocks by "boxing in" the flowers.  The background is made with Thatched Chalkboard Scribbles 187 with curves and inner border using Soft Black 152. The flower and leaf blocks use a mixture of Blizzard 150, Washed Linen 158, Toast 156, Gray 85, Early Dawn 122, Sugar Rose 127, Citrus 123, Clementine 138, Fuchsia 62, Green Curry 177, Sunlit 142, Grass 197, Dewdrop 143 and Brook 198.  There are two sizes of Mod Flower Box. The wall/lap size is 51" square with borders. If you choose to not have borders for a smaller wall quilt, the inner part is 34 x 34". The large quilt, sized 78" square, uses 4 units of the rotated Mod Flower Boxes.  I am planning on starting this lighter color version of Mod Flower Box, probably with a Washed Linen background or maybe Sandcastle 157 flipped to the backside and accent corners for curves in Blizzard 150.  I've made a number of quilts with curved corners and I DO include a paper template you can work from in the patterns. I do prefer to use a specialty ruler for doing curves and know of a number of them. I usually go to my trusty Creative Grids Circle Savvy Ruler since it has every size I want and I know I will get a really good result cutting with these! I note which slots in the pattern if you have this ruler too.  If you are new to curves, this is a great pattern to try since it only uses quarter circles vs half or full circles. Quarter circle curves are not very hard and I'd suggest making a practice block or two first and then go for it! I love the look of curved blocks- so soft and curvy and gentle. They are a fun thing to experiment with.  Here is more information on quilt materials and specifications. If you are interested in the pattern, it is up in my shop at RobinPickensInc.com  Printed ones will be available soon!
With Project Jelly Roll approaching, I decided to take a look at my Jelly Roll-friendly patterns to figure out what I am going to work on and perhaps share some ideas. One of my Jelly Roll patterns is Definite Plus.  My original Definite Plus quilt is made in Thatched basics. I loved playing with the color families and having a "ghost block" image in the center of just sashings and background. And I made this in both the large size on cream and the small size (using a Honey Bun or 1 1/2" strips) on Heather.  I wanted to see what this would look like made up in a Jelly Roll of print fabrics from a collection. I decided to make one that had no outer borders and no ghost block for the center. Full quarter log cabin blocks without an accent. If you make the large size without the outer border, it goes from being an 82" square quilt to 69 x 69", which makes a lovely large lap or can fit on a twin bed as a nice extra quilt.  How does this impact yardage and cutting? I have only made it this way in the Large size, so I don't have the specifications for the Small at this point. For Large quilt with no outer border and no ghosted center block or accent rectangles: Sashing: 1 2/3 Yards for sashing instead of 2 1/8 Yards. When you are cutting, you will cut a total of (56) WOF strips. (4) of those will be cut to 34 3/4" and joined end to end to make the long sashings horizontally between the rows. Instead of (44) 6 1/2 x 1" pieces, you will need (36). Background: You need 1 1/4 Yards for background instead of 3 Yards. You will only be cutting the centers of the Quarter Log Cabin blocks and need (36) of them.  For my print version, I decided to use Abby Rose for my strips. I made all my centers with Zen Chic Modern Paper for a pretty, romantic feel. My sashings are Moda Bella Off White 200. I still kept my groupings of 4 that make a plus sign in color families.  I like seeing the contrast of prints vs a more solid look for this quilt. I am very excited to try it again with upcoming lines and try other versions of background and sashing colors.   And just one more idea, since I'm playing around with it...what if the placement of colors were more improvisational and the background squares also had some pops of color? I decided to take a look in the suggestion of my Hygge Happy color theme direction (with Washed Linen, Toast, Cocoa, Sugar Rose, etc). What do you think? Playful or too random?  Looking for more Jelly Roll-friendly quilt patterns? Hop on over to my shop and check out Showering Stars, Ring Around the Posies, Equalizer, and Blockstep. And please join in the fun on September 18th 2021 as we sew those Jelly Rolls!  I had a great Labor Day, choosing my labor of love to be sewing on my Sampler Spree quilt. I got it all joined and boy am I happy about that! Here are the last blocks that went into those last few weeks before making my rows. Week 8 with more butterflies making their fancy flight across the blocks.   Week 9 I think my favorite was the angled one at the bottom of my line up of my new 10 blocks. It is block #60, Market Square.   And to the finish line on week 10! So much playing every week with light and dark, balancing of pattern vs solids (in my case Thatched) and having fun with the little butterflies. This was a whirlwind journey of block making.  The laying out of blocks with my trusty companion, Roxy. I needed to do a little rearranging from my original plan to get my lights and darks balanced.  It took me a week (in between other things) to make the double sashings. And then on Labor Day weekend I got it fully joined and ironed.   Next up will be longarming but I have a few other things to do first. Hopefully I'll be sharing the end result with quilting and binding soon!
Many thanks to Susan Ache for her lovely book, wonderful instructions, and engaging project that has made this summer busy and fun! I've compiled blocks into groups to share the updates of blocks 11-30 for the Kinship Fusion Sampler on the 100 Days 100 Blocks sewalong with GnomeAngel. My palette is the Hygge Happy Dance colorway of Thatched fabrics. Missed the post? Check it out here: Kinship in Thatched palettes.  I've had so much fun finding the little photo props to go with my blocks for this project! They remind me of so many special people in my life. My husband gave me those lovely mugs and I think he hit that surprise gift out of the park! And the lovely girl ceramic planter face...I also got one for my mom. She just makes me smile! I'm showing Smoked Paprika, Pink Grapefruit, Green Curry as the warm and spicy color here.  The calmness of the creams and tans has been lovely to sew with. Washed Linen, Toast, Cream and Cocoa. Little squares of cocoa make wonderful pops of contrast.  And pink, pretty pink in soft light shades (Early Dawn) or vibrant energy (Fucshia). These are the moments of girl power and contrast of both bold and soft.  We are a third of the way...keep sewing and enjoy the kinship!
 More butterflies and blues as the weeks progress with Sampler Spree quiltalong/sewalong. You know how sometimes one block just seems to act up? Well, I kept sewing my Sun Rays points on the wrong way! I know that is usually the time I should walk away and come back to the sewing later. But I felt stubborn with this one and ripped out and redid and ripped out and redid till it was done. I like to flip Thatched fabrics to the backside to get the lighter shades and I kept confusing myself with that on this one too. Yes, if you use that trick you do need to pay attention to how you are placing your fabrics together right/wrong sides.   Seven blocks were sewn that week with others to follow later in catch-up sewing! Week 6 had that adorable sailboat block! I had to slip a little green in for the sea and let it spill over to another block. The donuts block is so fun and even in blues, made me hungry for donuts! The last block, Goblets, makes me think of paddles to go with the boat. There were lots of new blocks I've not made before in this group. That is one of the things I'm really enjoying about this sewalong...all the new blocks to me!  It took a good Saturday sewing break to catch up on my last blocks for weeks 5 and 6.  One of my favorite blocks for week 7 is this Snails Trail block. It is the first time I've done one and I love the spinning look of it with those little squares in the middle.  I'm also a big fan of thin sashings and love the Lattice block for that reason. It reminds me a little of my Backslash quilt with the sashings and angles.   I love seeing the little butterflies show up in the blocks. I'm thinking my Sampler Spree might be named "Butterfly Cottage" since I'm using my Cottage Bleu fabrics and those butterflies seem to just flutter over the quilt.  Three more weeks of blocks then the joining! Lots of sashing with this one and I'm excited to start grouping my blocks into light and dark sections and making sub-groups.
Many thanks to Moda Fabrics and Martingale for sponsoring this sewalong and thanks to Susan Ache for writing such an enjoyable sampler book! July has been a busy sewing month! The other sew along I am participating in is the #100days100blocks with Gnome Angel using the Kinship Fusion Sampler pattern. My hygge happy dance color palette is enjoyable to sew with. I'm usually not a brown color kind of quilt person but I love the light Washed Linen color and find the colors feel calming to sew with. These blocks celebrate a modern, natural and simple style and I have had so much fun finding things around my space to photograph with the blocks.   I have to smile at how many times my little items were a gift from someone special or remind me of a specific time or friend. This little person with the plant hair was a treat from my daughter. She is always coming up with sweet ideas and is so thoughtful.  Pinks add some lively pops of color in Early Dawn light pink and Fuchsia vibrant pink. More warm colors of Smoked Paprika, Pink Grapefruit, Green Curry and Olive add spicy color flavor.   Ellie the elephant is another treat from my daughter and the rounded wood cutting board is from my son. They know me well.   Here is the Pink Grapefruit mixed in. Yummy!  These little friends remind me of my dear Roxy and our visitor friend Stevie the cat. She does like to sleep a lot so the expression is fitting.   First 10. Even if it is 100 degrees outside, these make me feel like a cup of cocoa and a snuggle with my dog. Next week I'll share the group of the next 10 or you can watch every day on instagram. Check out the hashtag #100days100blocks to see the great fussy cutting and fun fabric choices others are making.
Cheers!  Week 2 for Sampler Spree had a prompt for yellow. Since I am making my quilt in mostly blue, I will not be following the suggested colors each week, BUT I did think it would be fun to make some extra blocks here and there in the weekly color and maybe use those for an accent pillow at the end. I made an additional block 76 in yellows with a blue butterfly that flutters in the center in blue and teal.  The upper right in the next group shows my block 76 that will be in the quilt body. I played with a gradation of blues in the background, going from cream to light blue. The middle sides are using the same Thatched light blue (Mist 146) but flipped to the back side for a lighter shade. Block 58 took me the longest but I am really happy with how this block looks. It is so interesting with that little patchwork center that the angled pieces point to.  Here is the whole group of 10 blocks for the week plus the additional yellow one. On to week 3 and the color was teal/aqua/turquoise/seafoam. I've lucked out with my accent colors within Cottage Bleu that those greens are right in line with the teal/seafoam family.  My extra block this week is the lower left, block 82. I tried this with a gradation of a light small corner building out to darker rows wit a butterfly accent. I also really liked making the fun ship this week! And I love the pinwheel blades on block 67.  The upper right is my actual block 82 for the quilt top. I must admit, I prefer the teal/seafoam one I made. For the last blocks of the week, I made block 96 and the blues and whites look cheery with red for the 4th of July. The backdrop is red toweling from Pieces to Treasure/Jenelle Kent with Moda Fabrics.  Each week I like to see the blocks all together and it feels like so much accomplishment!   Week 4 and my trusty Rilakuma sewing assistant looked on with approval.  The pear block is the very first one I made, before the sewing officially began. I thought it was the cutest block and it was a sweet week with the tree and basket added as well. For my tree, I was thinking of the white and blue striped lower band as being an icy snowy ground.  This summer, I'm sewing along with the Sampler Spree, using the book from Susan Ache. The other sew along I'm doing is Kinship Fusion Sampler for #100days100blocks and I'll share those next! I'm enjoying using two very different color schemes and plans for the two projects. I hope you are sewing something fun this summer or are joining in one of the numerous sew alongs happening. Next week we will be about half way through this one. Summer sure is moving quickly! Happy sewing.   It's almost here...the 2021 Kinship sew along with Gnome Angel and I thought I'd share a bit of past projects and my plans for this year's quilt! Make sure you scroll down to see the new color combinations!!  I originally did the #100days100blocks in 2017 when we were using Tula Pink's 100 Modern Blocks book. That was lots of fun. I was really excited to see Ange release her own 100 blocks quilt "Kinship Fusion Sampler" for the 2019 sew along and I knew I had to do it! My Thatched basics fabrics were coming out with Moda and it was a great opportunity to play with them. If you are not familiar with Thatched, it can function like a solid or a blender with subtle drawn, nubby lines. It gives the colors a nice rich feel and a little more depth to the look than a plain solid.  My goal was fairly simple- use a limited color palette of white and 3 grays and add in pops of color with pairs of orange, green and teal/turquoise. I really enjoyed making my blocks because the cutting schemes were so logical and efficient and I knew that if I cut a width of fabric strip in a 4.5" size, I'd be using that whole strip in the variety of blocks we were making. 2.5, 4.5, 6.5, 1.5"...it was consistent with a nice amount of play and experimentation. A block a day. I can do that when they are no too hard yet have the right mix of variation. I bought my pattern directly from gnomeangel.com as a download but shops also have a printed pattern. I just saw them at Cozy Creative in San Diego this last week! Links to Ange's shop are at the end of this post.  I used Ange's Kitchen Sink version of laying out the blocks with 1" finished sashing in between the blocks (1.5" cut width). I decided to "frame" my quilt top by adding a thin strip of scraps of the colors I had used (1" cut width for 1/2" finished size) and surround that with a 3" cut border.  I really like the balance of white and color and clean modern look of this quilt.  Even though I pieced the top in 2019, I didn't get around to quilting it till mid way through 2020. I purchased a used longarm Bernina Q24 and had some pandemic self-training using YouTube videos to figure out what I was doing. That is a whole other blog post...but it was tremendously gratifying to get this quilted and bound! The pantograph is Swirl Out Jr by Mike Fountain, purchased from IntelligentQuilting.com.  This is sized to be a twin quilt but with the sashing and border, I can put it across the bed and cover my king bed! I started this sew along again last year, doing a scrappy version of blocks, and started making 2 of each block to made a king quilt. Now I'm rethinking that plan since I probably don't need two of all the blocks if I add sashing. I got busy with other projects so might rejoin with some of those scrappy blocks this year as well (or save them for 2022?)  That brings me to THIS YEAR and what my plans are. I like the layout, the idea of a limited palette with some accents, the distribution of accent colors, and the border additions. So I'm calling this Kitchen Sink Renovation (Ange's layout with a little reno). And since some NEW Thatched colors launched at the beginning of this year, I'm keen to try it with some of those.  This is Hygge Happy Dance because I think of that Danish soothing comfort vibe with these soft neutral warm colors and a little coral to red to pink warmth. This is the version I am making this year. I am currently very smitten with the new background color, Washed Linen, Thatched 158. Since I'm making this color combination, I'm gathering the fabrics to get ready for July 1st. The other colors in this quilt will be 62 Fuchsia, 122 Early Dawn, 185 Olive, 177 Green Curry, 156 Toast, 72 Cocoa, 183 Smoked Paprika, 181 Pink Grapefruit and 36 Cream.  This next mockup is called Midnight Jazz and you could make it with a dark blue Thatched, like Midnight (which is in the new Cottage Bleu line) or Dark Wash Indigo. But Pam at Serendipity Woods, and I decided a Nautical Blue Bella Solid was a great background fabric for this. The Thatched colors are 173 Bluebell, 144 Ocean, 125 Seafoam, 124 Greenery, 103 Apricot, 82 Tangerine, Cream 36, Washed Linen 158 and Toast 156.  Changing the background to White (Bella 200) brings a light and sparkly look to this same color combination in Morning Blues.  And my original, which I'm calling "Winter Turns to Spring" is Bella 200 Off White pared with Grays of 117 Shadow, 24 Pebble, 85 Gray, oranges 103 Apricot, 82 Tangerine, and greens of Chartreuse 75, Sprig 14, Peacock 77 and Turquoise 101.   If you are looking for these kitted and ready to go, then check out SerendipityWoods.com for some kits of each of these color ways. I believe Pam will be sewing along with us. I'll also be meeting with Quilt Emporium in Woodland Hills CA to go over the colors and they usually have all the Thatched colors! I'm happy to share any information of shops with Kinship/Thatched kits so let me know. I hope you are joining in the #100days100blocks sew along with GnomeAngel using her Kinship quilt pattern. See you posting in July!   Visit Gnome Angel's website/blog for more info on the sew along and answers to questions you might have at https://www.gnomeangel.com/100days100blocks-event-information/ or purchase a pattern in her shop https://shopau.gnomeangel.com/collections/books-patterns/products/pattern-kinship-100-block-fusion-sampler My dear Roxy has decided she likes this quilt. It's her colors. She must be touching it and making sure it is hers...at all times.  |
About ROBINDesigner of colorful florals for Moda fabrics. Modern to transitional quilt designer. Illustrator, sewist, crafter. 
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