Spiral - Values Quilt with Tag Fabric

Spiral

60'' x 60''

There was a moment while making this quilt, as I put the trimmed blocks on the wall, when I stopped breathing. Not in a bad, call the ambulance way! No, in the held my breath because I was so excited way. That was the moment when it hit me that I was sewing with fabrics I designed. Until that point the fact that I'd designed fabrics for sewing seemed distant, almost ethereal. Not even when I approved final designs, not when I got my strike offs, not even when I was cutting into the fabric for the first time. The moment only came when I'd already cut, sewn, and trimmed over 100 HSTs for this quilt. I put three blocks on the design wall and simply had to stop.

It is a moment I remember clearly. The sewing room door was open and the rest of the family was watching Bear Grylls, the one with Mel B from the Spice Girls. I started in the top left corner of the design wall and three blocks in just stopped. I had to sit down. Then stand. Then sit. Then stand. Then lean. I may have jumped a little, just a little. And I kept talking to myself about how cool it all was, annoying the family. Tough on them - this was my new quilt with my new fabric! All mine! I would say it was surreal, but the truth is that it was profoundly real. That's why I lost my breath.

Thankfully I managed to forge ahead and make this quilt, plus a few others to be shared.

I will fully admit, that it was a bit of a struggle to make quilts and write patterns with ONLY Tag Fabric. If you've been reading here for any amount of time you know that I have a hard time being so exclusive. Even with my own fabric that was really difficult. 

When I designed the fabric it was originally supposed to be full colour. Through the iterative process with Connecting Threads we switched with black, grey, and white. Without too much trouble it became 20 fabrics evenly split along value lines. That meant it was ripe for making a Values Quilt. Because value is relative, it is ridiculously easy to have the fabric line do the work for you. But also an excellent lesson for learning value. Also conveniently, a fat quarter bundle gets you this quilt, with enough blocks left over for another small quilt or pillow.  You get all that in the pattern. Yes, there is a pattern for the quilt.

Patterns and full quilt kits are available from the Connecting Threads site. Or you can buy the PDF pattern directly from my Etsy site.

Splendid Sampler Wrap Up and Giveaway!

A whole year later The Splendid Sampler finishes up! While I stalled in making blocks months ago, it was fantastic to see more and more quilters tackle all the techniques and tiny piecing of the designs making up the 100 blocks. 

To celebrate, our fearless leaders Pat Sloan and Jane Davidson are hosting an international giveaway. So are a number of the contributing designers.

For my faithful and new readers I would love to share a collection of patterns with you. Leave a comment below on what you loved and hated about The Splendid Sampler. Finish with your email address so I can contact you (my host does weird things and it is hard to get emails from comments just by clicking on them). Like this:

I'm not a fan of embroidery so those blocks always stopped me in my tracks, but I loved pushing my own technical boundaries! 

cheryl AT cherylarkison DOT com

That way spam bots won't get them but I can still contact the winner.

The prize?! How about a collection of digital patterns? I currently have 6 patterns and would be happy to send you a copy of each. Three of them are brand new to coincide with my Tag Fabric from Connecting Threads.

You will get my most popular pattern, Oh Canada. Plus the Sewing Machine Quilt and Kinda Herringbone. The three new patterns are for Hopscotch, Spiral, and Ellipsis. The last one is a fun mini that will likely appeal to grammar nerds like myself.

Giveaway is open until February 19, midnight MST. I will email the the winner the following day.

And don't forget to check out the main giveaway and celebration, plus the other parties around the world. 

The Splendid Sampler - In The Sunshine

In The Sunshine

18.5'' x 18.5

My 15th wedding anniversary is coming up in a couple of months. One of the more entertaining moments of our wedding day (aside from the baby nearly born there) occurred as we walked down the aisle after the ceremony. After almost 6 years of dating it seems our wedding was a much anticipated affair. So our friends standing up there with us shouted out a coordinated, "Finally!!' 

After nearly a year of The Splendid Sampler I kind of feeling shouting Finally!! myself as my block debuts.

In the Sunshine was envisaged to celebrate my love of applique, a desire to not have really tiny pieces on this small block, and just a little bit of my true love, improv. And really, who doesn't love a flag waving in the sunshine?

Get the pattern here. Finally!

It was fun to play with my own fabric in this mini quilt. My first line, Tag, recently came out with Connecting Threads. I've made a handful of quilts already with just my fabrics, but the true measure of a fabric is how well it plays with others. So the background squares include my fabric plus a mix of stashed black and white prints. Then I dug into the scrap bin for the solid fabrics on the flags.

Now making a mini is hard for me. I get why people love them - boy is it fast from start to finish - but I prefer to Go King or Go Home! And when I am sewing for myself I default to improv piecing: curves, letters, slabs, and everything else.  That being said,  I really enjoy the switch up to designing patterns. It gets my brain working in a different way plus seeing the different results from other quilters is pretty thrilling! That's why I am so excited to see what each of you do with the block. This was a quick one to make, even with the needle turn applique. Get the pattern here. 

For those of you new here let me tell you a bit about myself. I live on intersection of the Rocky Mountains and the Prairies, in Calgary, Alberta. A pretty dreamy location. We get a proper winter - which I love - and it gets just hot enough in the summer. I'm such a Canadian! We have 3 nearly feral, outgoing, and active kids. My girls have followed me to the pool. In my youth I was a competitive swimmer then rower. After a decade working on environmental policy and sustainability issues I switched gears to staying with my kids and to become a professional quilter, writer, and a teacher. With three published books, online classes, national and international travel to teach on top of our busy lives I could say it is a fine balance, but it is more like a rocky seesaw that just can't quite make it even. But hey, I chose it and I'm making it work!

So take a few moments to hang out here. Check out my quilt gallery for inspiration, read through the blog for a glimpse into my compulsion to create, and feel free to sign up for my biweekly newsletter. My mission here and in everything quilting is to inspire creative action in everyone, for everyone. I am what you see - bold, blunt, kind, generous, open, and a little bit weird.

PS If the curves make you nervous, check out my episode of The Quilt Show, where I break it down. 

Morning Make II - Improv Curves plus Tag Fabric

Ever have those moments where you see something and just have to try it? At some point in December I saw a block that Sharon, at Color Girl Quilts, was working on. Hers was very precise - she does really cool things with curves - and I wanted to see if I could do the same thing with improvised curved piecing. Turns out I could.

I only made a couple of blocks to try it, with no intention to make more. But I really, really liked the blocks and I was still more curious. So I made a few more. Once the secondary patterns emerged I was hooked! This project became my Morning Make over the holidays. I finished it up on the weekend. It became very addictive!

Our quilts are not the same at all. That being said, you can certainly see the link between mine and her original. The main block structure is the same. It is the piecing technique and the final layout that make the big difference.  

For the technique I use (and teach) when making improv curves there are some leftovers. Very usable leftovers. Think enough for a whole other quilt. Quite often I play and they become part of the original work. This time, however, that wasn't going to work for the repeating design. Now I am sewing together all the leftovers from cutting those curves. It will be enough for a whole other quilt (or the back). I just want to get them sewn together as blocks for now and will play with layout options another day.

One of the best parts of this quilt - for me, at least - was getting to use my own fabric in it! That's right, Tag is now available through Connecting Threads. I have a lot to share about that in the coming weeks, but it was a lot of fun for me to see how well it played with the rest of my stash. Can't way to show you more.