I designed this as a free pattern for Red Rooster Fabrics several years ago. I took it down for awhile and then decided to put it back up. It's such a sweet quilt that uses quite a few different prints. Dresden Garden quilt with Fleur du Jardin fabrics by Red Rooster Did I ever tell you about how little fabric I was sent? To be fair, these were just the little samples that the manufacturer sent to the Marketing Rep. But, Leslie has known me for over 10 years and I have delivered designs and quilts with bits and pieces before. Holy Cow! Bits and pieces about 1/8th yard in size with maybe 1/3 yard of that floral. Now you can see why I had to get creative with the colors! Here is how I pieced the back: Dresden Garden quilt back Now, go back and look at the binding. Was I just trying to be clever? No way! I only had a little bit of each of the solid reading fabrics and so had to piece the binding. So, I put my thinking cap on and echoed the colors in the inner bo...

There are times I come back to a fabric collection over and over. There are several groups from Windham Fabrics that mix well and keep calling to me. One is the Gabrielle Collection , which I used to make my LARGE Coffee Filter Mariner's Compass . (You can see some of my steps by clicking that link.) This is a fun workshop using 20" diameter coffee filters for the center compass. We draft it and then cut it apart into 8 sections and actually paper/foundation piece on each one! Then we piece the ring of flying geese. The whole center is about 30" x 30". 20" Coffee Filter Mariner's Compass I still have some of that Gabrielle Collection left. My favorite piece is the floral background print for the center spokes. Yes, it looks more tan in the pic below, but it really is more cream. Gabrielle Floral print I did a lot of sewing with Addison . The first thing was to make a simple table topper. It is a variation on Baby Blocks . My friend cut all my ...

Almost 30 years ago, a guild friend named Kathleen handed me a grocery bag full of fabric circles. These were no ordinary fabric circles. They were authentic 1930s Feed Sacks! It appeared that an anonymous quilter had cut them out, destined to be yo-yos. She thought I would be interested in playing with them. Holy cow! What a true find. This quilt uses a few of those circles, and they aren't yo-yos! It was HAND QUILTED! Still one of my favorites, for sure. Authentic Feed Sacks for Baskets I did make  a few yo-yos, but the circles were calling me to become something else. A few of the hundreds of circles made into yo yos I had just started working for Quilt Magazine and I was intrigued with Drunkard's Path blocks and quilts, but NOT by the traditional way to make them. This next quilt uses those feed sack circles and other solids. The outer pink print border is an authentic feed sack! This quilt has 8" finished blocks and finishes to 30" x 39". I se...

Here's a lovely little quilt pattern I designed for P and B Fabrics almost 2 years ago. They had a fabric collection called Welcome Baby and wanted something to do it justice. I thought: SIMPLE is best. Again, I let some of those fantastic baby prints do all the work. Baby Love : 36" x 37" These are reproduction prints from 1925. Can you see those sweet little cherubs in those wide strips in the center? The full size letters are included in the pdf pattern. It is easy to piece and the appliqué is raw edge. Baby Love  is a very scrappy quilt and uses quite a few different prints. Or you could control the color palette to be more gender specific. It's your call. Enjoy!

Rules. Rules. Rules. Holy cow - enough already. I was with my quilting church group the other day and a few of the ladies asked some honest questions: 1. Do you use steam when pressing your patches? 2. Why don't you pre-wash your fabric? 3. How come you fold your fabric into fourths when you cut strips? 4. Do you have your fabric torn or cut at quilt shops? 5. How about pressing seams - open or to the side? I realized that I was the Queen of Shortcuts long ago and break many of those pesky RULES that some anonymous quilter made up and scared the you-know-what out of the newbies. It's not that these rules are wrong; it's just that they're not always right. Here's my most recent quilt finish made with a specialty ruler (I have VERY few; many are redundant or unnecessary). The 6" Curvy Log Cabin ruler was designed for Creative Grids by my former editor Jean Ann Wright. Chasing Pac Man Because there are SO many seams coming together, I pressed the se...

How's your Friday going? We are waiting for the Snow Apocalypse to happen tomorrow here in Virginia, so how about taking our minds off of that with a Spring type pattern? This is Sonnet which I designed for P and B Textiles almost 2 years ago. My favorite color is pink and it looks so lovely with these grays. What do you think? Sonnet : 34" x 42" Sonnet  is composed of two sizes of blocks. The smaller blocks finish to 7-1/2" and the larger blocks finish to 15". I wanted the fabric to do all the work. I do not like to chop beautiful fabric into little, tiny pieces. This is a very quick quilt to stitch and makes a lovely size for a small child or even a lap quilt for a wheel chair. Any combination of colors will do. Make it in fabrics you love. Click the link and it will take you directly to the pdf of the pattern for easy download.

FIRST: I have my two winners: Aby B. of North Dakota won a hard copy CD of my book. Bonnie B. of Canada won the digital version. Congratulations! And thanks to all of you for your kind words about these quilts! Now let's talk about some beautiful AND current fabrics. You saw a few of these images before, but I was able to quilt this a few weeks ago and plan on using the finishing steps (binding, rod pocket and label tricks) in an upcoming blog post. I saw Fantasy back in the Fall of 2019. They were new at Quilt Market and a local shop owner brought some to my guild meeting here in Virginia. I immediately asked Windham (for whom I design and sew on occasion) for some. And this is the fat quarter bundle that came! Fantasy fabrics by Windham I already had the blenders called Uncorked by Another Point of View for Windham. (Doesn't that sound like a party theme?) Uncorked fabrics and my trusty dresden ruler I began playing with these two collections together  in Au...

I thought I would finish up the examples of my Anatomy of a Quilt terms by sharing the 16 quilts in my first book and referring to the parts in them. I have my two winners: Aby B. of North Dakota won a hard copy CD of my book. Bonnie B. of Canada won the digital version. Congratulations! And thanks to all of you for your kind words about these quilts! Bold, Black and Beautiful is the title of my first book (AQS, 2004). The common "thread" was the use of black in my quilts. I still own a few of these (most of the others were part of that theft in 2005). But, in this post, I just want to share ALL of them and inspire you to consider the use of black in your quilts. 1. The Cover Girl is Royal Star . She appeared on the cover of Quilt Magazine and also on this book. She glows full of Benartex Fossil Ferns! This is an updated version of a vintage block. Royal Star Here is my book cover: The SASHINGS between the blocks are composed of 3 strips: black/color/blac...