Transparent Building Blocks Fabric Pull
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19 Jul
Quilts

Transparent Building Blocks {Design and Fabric Pull}

Some friends are expecting their first child later this year, and I have been working with them on a design and fabric selection to make a baby quilt. They are not going to learn the gender until birth, and other than not wanting something that read as stereotypically gender related, I had pretty free reign to come up with...

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Sesen - Blues and Yellows
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02 Nov
Quilts

Quilt Commission {Quilt Design}

A local friend reached out to me at the beginning of October enquiring if I would consider making a quilt on commission. Although it is pretty rare that I take on commission work, she gave me free reign on the design (with just enough input to make sure the recipient will love it) and I am really excited to...

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Color Palette
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29 May
Quilts

Mum’s Garden {Design Process}

When I purchased all the Kona Cotton yardage from my local quilt shop that is closing, I was intrigued by the Yarrow/Spice/Burgundy color combination. Last week I decided to start thinking about what I could made using those fabrics. To start, I went to my cut up Kona Cotton color card and found the color swatches for the 4...

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Fabric Pull
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02 Mar
Modern Design Lab

MDL Mini Quilt Challenge {Design}

After the bustle of the holidays, start of the new year, and QuiltCon, the Modern Design Lab group is looking ahead to our plans for this year. One of the first challenges in store for us this year is a mini quilt challenge. We will all be working to create a finished 15" square mini quilt (including binding) using...

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Fabric Pull
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04 Nov
Quilt Design

November Inspiration & Design {Modern Design Lab}

The design group in which I have been participating now has a name: Modern Design Lab (MDL)! I like the group name and how well it describes our activities together. For November, instead of an inspiration image taken by one of our members, we were given an image of a magazine cover to use as inspiration. The email that contained...

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Inspiration photograph taken by Travis Seward @travlis
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09 May
Discussion

Finding Design Inspiration

As part of a design group, I receive an inspiration photograph on roughly a bi-monthly basis and work to design and piece a block, mini quilt, or quilt based on inspiration I get from the photograph. This is very similar to the Quilt Design a Day (QDAD) Facebook group that I have discussed in the past (in case you...

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Blue Moon Quilters Final Colored Design
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19 Jul
Quilt Design, Quilts

QuiltCon 2017 Charity Quilt Challenge

When I read about the QuiltCon 2017 Charity Quilt Challenge, I was really excited. As an individual Modern Quilt Guild (MQG) member, I had the choice of forming a group or submitting my name to the MQG to be placed in a group. I reached out to the group of women whom I recently worked with on the personal...

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Sunburst at Badwater Salt Flat, Death Valley National Park
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04 Mar
2016 Finished Quilts, Giveaway, Quilts

Sunburst Background & Giveaway

Today I wanted to share more about Sunburst, which is probably my favorite quilt that I have finished to date. I love blogging and sharing my thoughts on a quilt as I am working on it, and I really missed out on getting to share details and lessons learned with you as I made Sunburst. I have been looking...

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Lighthouse Lens Placemat - 1 of 8
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04 Nov
Quilted Placemats

Lighthouse Lens Placemats {WiP}

As I mentioned in my Sunday Stash post, I am really excited about a new custom order that I received this past week. I thought I would talk through the design evolution and share the progress I have made piecing this project so far this week. The design inspiration for this project was a lighthouse lens, and the requested color palette...

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Red Herring - Halfway Pieced
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21 Oct
Quilts

Red Herring Quilt {WiP}

I have made good progress on piecing the Red Herring quilt since I shared my design concept with you on Friday. I am just so excited about the quilt that I jumped right in and got started on piecing it this past weekend. The top 3 rows (or half of the quilt top) are complete. The very first block I...

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12 Oct
Inkscape Design Tutorials

Using Fabric Swatches in Inkscape

One of the things I have wanted to learn how to do within Inkscape is how to import fabric swatches and use the fabric swatches in my designs. This is something that is definitely a huge plus for the Electric Quilt design software, and I was hoping I could figure out a way to use the free Inkscape software...

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20150404 - Final Medallion Design
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04 Apr
Discussion, QDAD

QDAD Medallion Week

Quilt Design a Day (QDAD) is a wonderful design challenge. I dabble in it from time to time, but this past week I committed to working on a design each day because it was Medallion Challenge week. On the first day, the goal is to create the design for the center of a medallion quilt, and each day the goal is to add...

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Out of the Woods - Sun and Sky Detail
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16 Feb
Quilts

Out of the Woods {Flimsy Finish}

When I received the Hawthorne Threads order that contained the fabric for Out of the Woods, I could not wait to dive in and piece the quilt top! I jumped right in and in 1.5 hours I had the top 40% of the quilt top pieced; the sun and sky. I took my time and pieced half-square triangles (HSTs) carefully...

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04 Feb
Quilt Design, Quilts

Out of the Woods – Quilt Design

A friend contacted me in November to discuss having a quilt made. She is a breast cancer survivor and she is currently recovering from a knee replacement. She has a bright outlook on her future, and she wanted to celebrate turning the page on illness in her life with a cheerful quilt. Hearing her discuss her optimism and hopes for the future...

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Life: Ups and Downs
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03 Feb
2015 Finished Quilts, Quilts

Life: Ups and Downs

If you follow me on Instagram, then you probably saw my whirlwind make last Wednesday. Once again, I found myself in a sewing / quilting lull while I was waiting to work on some larger, long term projects. Since many of the large projects I have been working on recently have been for others, I wanted to challenge myself...

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Aesthetic Experience
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18 Jan
Discussion

Design Aesthetics and Quilts

My husband has been researching design aesthetics recently. He is focused on evaluating a large object and refining it to have pleasing aesthetics, which is a design challenge that he has not been faced with previously. As an engineer, he has found himself presented with long lists of requirements that an item needs to meet, and on this project,...

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Tessellated Leaves - Design
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08 Oct
Quilts

Lots of WiPs

I definitely think of myself as a one project at a time kind of person, and I have found myself with many more projects than I am used to at one time at the moment. Today I want to introduce you to 2 more queen sized quilt projects that I have taken on. The goal is to have both of these...

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Concept Hand Sketch
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22 Sep
Quilt Design

Cocoa Leaf Queen Size Quilt {Quilt Design}

I delivered the Cocoa Leaf mini-quilts about a week ago and spent some time with my customers discussing design options for the larger, queen size quilt. I drew up some pretty nice hand sketches and colored them with colored pencil, and I am kicking myself for not photographing them before leaving them with the customers. Oops. So I pulled...

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Cocoa Leaf Mini Quilt
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03 Sep
2014 Finished Quilts, Quilts

Cocoa Leaf Mini Quilt

I am going to be working on the design of a queen size quilt based on a beautiful multi-colored stained cocoa leaf light fixture. Thankfully, I have access to this fixture in person, and I was able to take my Kona color card over to color match earlier this week. I particularly love the strong lines of the veins in...

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