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It's finally here! Carolina Lilies has made it through the supply chain obstacle course and arrived in quilt shops! Yay! I'm so ready to do some more sewing with those peach, ruby, green, aqua and teal colors. What to do? Well, my dear Mother asked me what I would recommend if she wanted to make Criss Cross Kisses in Carolina Lilies. So of course I had to mock it up!  I've mocked these up in the 63 1/2" lap size quilt. These first ideas use Fat Eighths of fabric. Carolina Lilies has a sweet little print of tiny vines in a white on cream which would be lovely as the background. But the Thatched Cream is a great match too. I've kept the idea of the red Xs and doing a split light and dark outline X with the inside halves in teals and the outsides in the lighter green/cream colorways.  The fabrics I've used here in the Fat Eighths are the Carolina Lilies main prints 48700-11, 14, 21, Boho Blooms 48701-11, 12, 21, Ferns 48702-11, 12, Little Drawings 48703-13, Vines 48704-11, 13, 17, 20, Dashed 48705-11, 12, 14, 21, Thatched 48626-191, 193, 199. I also think this looks nice on a dark background and using Thatched Soft Black would be very dramatic. The same colors are in the top image on dark. The bottom image uses more greens and aquas from the collection with only a red interior and outer triangles.  But what if you are using a Layer Cake? The mix of fabrics is a little more varied and there are not as many reds to do all red Xs. But it still looks great with a scrappier red/green/aqua look. On the bottom of the Layer Cake mockups I flipped the teal and red families so the solid Xs are green/teal and the surrounding outline Xs are reds. Subtle differences but fun to see.  What IF we tried a background color that is unexpected? Here is Thatched Green Curry 177 and it gives this such an interesting vibe! Colors and their combinations give such strong personalities to quilts.  Have fun exploring Criss Cross Kisses with a new fabric grouping! Check your local quilt shop and happy sewing! Criss Cross Kisses Quilt pattern can also be found at my online shop RobinPickensInc.com 
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I had not shared my new quilts yet on this blog that I designed for Tulip Tango! The rush of November swirled into the holidays so quickly and with deadlines for fabric lines and calendar artwork added in, I somehow overlooked that. So it is the New Year and time to get back to some more sharing!  The Xs on this quilt make me think of cross stitch and a criss cross motion. And x's and o's make me think of hugs and kisses. So Criss Cross Kisses it is! This quilt is a fun play of both solid and "outlined" Xs with a variety of fabrics making up each X.  There are a lot of opportunities to play with the groupings of color or light and dark with these blocks. I liked separating the Outlined Xs below into cream/linen and gray halves. I then wanted the grays all grouped around the center X. I kept all my Xs in the Red/Pink families. By grouping light and dark halves, you create interesting shapes (like a chunky plus sign) within the overall layout.  In contrast, the Queen bed sized (and it is shown here on a king so you can see it can also work on that size mattress) is made with more random placement of colors. But again, I kept Xs within a color family each for this one.  This quilt can use Fat Eights (for lap) or Fat Quarters (for Queen) of fabric to make the pieces or you can use a Layer Cake(s). I used the Fat Eighths/Fat Quarters instead of Layer Cakes so I could group my colors specifically (the Layer Cakes will give you a slightly scrappier look). On the lap sized quilt (which is 63 1/2" square) you need 20 F8. I used 10 in red fabrics, 4 in linen fabrics, 4 in gray fabrics, then another 2 from the gray family for the outer border triangles. On the queen sized quilt you need 27 Fat Quarters and I selected 13 red, and a mixture of black, linen and green for the other 14 for the outline Xs and border triangles. If you use a Layer Cake, one will work for the lap and two are needed for the Queen. You can even use Fat Sixteenths on these- double the number of F8 or 4x the number of FQ to do so.  For this pattern you are using stitch and flip corners on those outline Xs and reusing parts for the corner backgrounds. Similarly, the big sold Xs cut those corners off but I didn't want them wasted. I challenged myself to think of ways of integrating the leftover corners that were cut off. That is how the little arrow heads that play in the sashings work their way into this quilt. They give more direction and size contrast within the quilt while adding little pops of those big X colors throughout in little ways.  With the strong diagonal directions of the pieces, I thought the border including arrow heads of a larger size was a nice balance. On the lap quilt, it reminds me of a compass of North, South, East and West.  This pattern design idea was actually started back when I first designed my Dear Mum patterns. It has been rumbling around in my head for awhile and I'm happy to see it finally come to life. Sometimes things need to develop over time and this is one of them. The lap quilt was pieced by Susan Strumpf and the queen by me. I longarmed both and used the Leafarama pantograph by Keryn Emmerson and Whirlwind by Wildflower Quilting/Karen Farnsworth.  Criss Cross Kisses is up in the shop in digital pdfs and printed patterns. Tulip Tango fabric should arrive in shops in approximately May 2022. Check the next blog post if you are interested in seeing it mocked up in Carolina Lilies (thanks Mom for your special request for that!) |
About ROBINDesigner of colorful florals for Moda fabrics. Modern to transitional quilt designer. Illustrator, sewist, crafter. I am proud to be a designer for Moda Fabrics!
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