Pistils & Pollen {Morrison Park Fabric Tour, Pattern Release & Giveaway}

Welcome to my stop on Pat Sloan‘s Morrison Park Tour! If you are new to Quilting Jetgirl, I’m a former aerospace engineer (the highlight of my 15 year career was working on the small design, build, and test team for the prototype SpaceShipTwo) turned quilt pattern designer, teacher, and technical editor. I lean toward modern, graphic designs and have recently branched out from transparency quilts to explore curved piecing.

I have a lot to talk about today, so let’s dive in and take a look at some of the prints in Pat’s new Morrison Park line for Benartex.

Morrison Park Fabric

I selected a subset of the prints from Morrison Park (affiliate link) to work with. Starting on the left at the bottom and working up / clockwise:

• Benches in Red
• Ponds in Rose
• Ponds in Yellow
• Benches in Green
• The Meadow in Green
• Benches in Blue
• Ponds in Blue
• Ponds in Cream

It is not pictured here, but I also used Master Garden in Navy for the binding. I was clearly attracted to the tone on tone prints in the Morrison Park line and I love how the flowers in the Ponds print reads like another polka dot to compliment the Benches print.

As my long time readers might remember me mentioning a few weeks ago, when Pat asked if there was anything I might want to consider making with Morrison Park, I was just starting my curve piecing exploration and I jumped at the opportunity to design something new to try. When the fabric arrived, I took a closer look at my design and realized it wasn’t something that could really be pieced using the methods I intended. Oops! I was able to change the design to still use the yardages I requested and in the end, the design is better for the refinement; instead of a 60″ square quilt, the design finishes at a great lap size of 60″ x 72″.

Pistils & Pollen

Pistils & Pollen continues my exploration of curve star blocks and inset curve stars (both of the links go to free online tutorials), which create beautiful curve stars from a single piece of fabric. The methods are perfect for highlighting favorite prints, and I really like how it allows Pat’s Morrison Park prints to shine.

The design reminded me of the center of a flower with its cluster of stamen around a pistil, and for the quilt / design name, I opted for the slightly more alliterative name of Pistils & Pollen.

Pistils and Pollen Detail

The Master Garden in Navy print is a wonderful binding and frame for the quilt. In addition to framing the quilt nicely, I really like that it has touches of red in the print which you can see, along with other fun details, as you get closer.

Pistils & Pollen Detail

I used 50wt Aurifil 2000 (Light Sand) for the piecing and quilting, which blends in perfectly with the background Ponds in Cream print. I quilted a meandering stipple with an occasional loop in the background to represent the pollinators necessary to get the pollen to the flower pistil. I used the same 50wt Aurifil 2000 thread to quilt each curve star with a 1″ echo, and then I added a star burst at the center of each star.

Bonus Quilt

What’s even better than one quilt? Two! The curve star blocks and inset curve stars create scraps that are perfect for squaring up and creating drunkard’s path blocks, so I designed a second quilt using an additional background fabric to showcase how Morrison Park looks against a darker background.

Bonus Bouquet

The Bonus Bouquet quilt finishes at 50″ x 60″, and I’ll be sharing more details about that quilt tomorrow.

Many thanks to Pat Sloan and Benartex for supplying the fabric for Pistils & Pollen and asking me to participate in the Morrison Park Tour. To celebrate the Pistils & Pollen pattern release, which includes instructions for a baby (48″ x 48″) and lap (60″ x 72″) quilt along with the Bonus Bouquet pattern for each (40″ x 50″ or 50″ x 60″, respectively), the pattern will be on sale through October 5th.

Giveaway!

Pat, Benartex, and Aurifil have teamed up to offer a daily giveaway for the Morrison Park Tour. If you are in the US, you will win a layer cake of Morrison Park and a Benartex Fat Quarterly club newsletter with a charm pack. If you are not in the US, you will win Pat Sloan’s curated Aurifil thread Perfect Box of Neutrals. Use the rafflecopter widget below to enter to win. By entering, you acknowledge that you are at least 18 years old. The giveaway is open through midnight Eastern on Monday, October 5th. A winner will be randomly selected, and you must reply via email with your mailing address within 48 hours to claim your prize. All prizes will be shipped on October 15th.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Pat Sloan‘s Morrison Park Tour

Be sure to visit all the other people participating in the Morrison Park Tour to see more of the fabric line and enter to win more giveaways!

Pistils & Pollen Backing Outtake

Outdoor photography of quilts can be a challenge. The air quality in our town has been poor for 5+ weeks, and while not a blue sky, this gray is the best we’ve had in weeks. Special thanks to my husband for his patience with the wind, but I do love how you can see the quilt backing nicely in this outtake photograph. The backing is from Pat’s Bonnie Lane line and is the Apron Prints in Blue which has a delightful metallic shimmer!

Linking up with Beauties Pageant 100, TGIFF, and Finished Friday.