I just got home from teaching at Quilt Odyssey (Hershey, PA) and my most popular class was the Modern Vortex. 25 students had such a great time and I loved seeing all the different fabric combinations. In case you don't know what my Modern Vortex looks like, here it is. I created this in 2012 as the result of a blog hop challenge. Modern Vortex Mine has been imitated by some other "famous" quilters, but my inspiration came from the vintage Vortex quilt that I'm sure you've seen: Original Vortex quilt, c1910 How about some other versions? I've taught this workshop over 2 dozen times and my students have given me some great ideas. How about multi-colors? Jane H. of Centreville, MD took my workshop a few years ago and decided to take the plunge and use more than 2 colors. She worked out the cutting and color placement. What do you think? Multi-colored Vortex  I decided to follow suit and now my pattern includes this version. Here are my sa...

I've had a presence on the internet for 25 years - yes, I have! I was one of the first professional quilters to offer patterns and tutorials, much of it connected with my 1,000+ articles published in Quilt Magazine. Try to wrap your head around that one - I certainly can't! I am slowly migrating my free patterns and tutorials over to a more manageable site, so if you find broken links with free patterns, this is why. But I thought I'd share a blast from the past with my Easy Piecing Dresdens . This is old-school, so try not to laugh at the graphics. But this is the way we had to do things in the Wild West of code-ville back in the mid 1990s. The blocks are 12" in the online version. Dresden Plates have many renditions. This pattern is for one using a 30 degree template. That translates to 12 wedges for each circle. Think of the math: 30 x 12 = 360 (the degrees in a circle) Here's one recent 10" block that I auditioned two different ways. These are the ...

I love coming into contact with a solid set of "blenders" that have a lot of possibilities. Such it is with Bedrock from Windham Fabrics. These were released in January and I assume they will be with us for a long time. We are always looking for solids that aren't solids, if you know what I mean! I have been working on my 2020 Quilting Calendar (yes, I am!) and designed a simple carrot block. Carrots? Really? Yes! Let me show you! Windham sent me all 70 of the Bedrock skus, each being a fat quarter. You can't do a lot with fat quarters, or can you? Remember my quilt from last week made using fat quarters of Birdsong ? That big quilt was made using ONLY fat quarters. Even the border. I selected 3 fabrics of Bedrock for my simple block. Of course there's a real orangey - orange! I decided to make a version of my Eat Your Carrots pattern. Fabrics selected for my Carrot blocks  I printed my carrot pattern (for foundation piecing) five times. It will f...

I fell in love with this collection by Clare Therese Gray for Windham Fabrics called Birdsong . Clare is an illustrator who lives in England on a farm with her husband and two young children. Her work reflects the countryside around her, I think!  I was sent a set of fat quarters of Birdsong a few months ago and I kept taking them out and stroking them. Such lovely, sweet images. Let me show you. Birdsong by Clare Therese Gray for Windham Fabrics These prints include butterflies, flowers (of course!) and bird eggs. This color combination is one of my favorites and I put my thinking cap on to see what I could come up with. I was only going to make a few blocks. Ha! I pulled out one of my upsized birdhouse paper pieced block which I call Home Tweet Home . This design dates back to 2002 when I created 12 paper pieced birdhouses in a much smaller size. This was very quick to paper piece because I had already worked out the cutting size of the different patches! I made it a...

Let's see some more of the upcoming quilts in the 2019 Quilter's Block a Day Calendar. It's more than blocks - there are whole quilts (42 of them). (For those who want to see 6 months of my 2018 calendar - I'm still uploading - you can visit my Pinterest Board to see 33 projects!) Here are the ones that appear in February of the 2019 calendar : The Vintage Redwork Sampler has 9" blocks and finishes to 32" x 32". Borders are your option to finish this larger. Perfect for those who enjoy redwork embroidery. These blocks appeared in the Kansas City Star in the 1930s and I redrafted them (tediously in Adobe Illustrator) 15 years ago. Timeless! Vintage Redwork Sampler This hearts Sampler uses 7" blocks (paper pieced except for the Scrolled Hearts in the Center) and finishes to 35" x 35". Hearts Sampler Castles in the Air has both 4" and 12" blocks for a 40" x 40" quilt. Castles in the Air And the fo...

It's hard to believe that I've been published these Quilter's Block a Day calendars for 13 years! It's true and the 2019 edition is now available. Here is the cover: 2019 Quilting Block and Pattern a Day Calendar Let me show you the various projects inside. There are 42 different quilts in various sizes and "personalities." Appliqué, rotary cutting, paper piecing - it's all there. Here are the January projects : Celebrate Snowflakes is 40" x 40" and is appliqué. I can almost see this also as a Hannukah quilt, couldn't you? Celebrate Snowflakes  MacDonald's Farm is both appliqué and piecing. Size: 40" x 40". Perfect for a child's quilt. MacDonald's Farm Stars and Roses is very traditional with both appliqué and piecing. Quilt Size: 72" x 72" Stars and Roses This is not available until July 17, but many places give you the option of pre-ordering. I'll have more blog posts this mo...