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Friday, November 25, 2022

Quilt Pattern Mart Sale / Beauties Pageant 195

 

Hello quilty friends! I am popping in today to share the happy news that all my PDF patterns at Quilt Pattern Mart are 25% off through the end of the month!

Are you familiar with Quilt Pattern Mart? QPM exclusively sells PDF patterns from a large collection of designers. So even if you’re not in the market for a From Bolt to Beauty pattern, chances are you’ll find what you are looking for among the selection of patterns. 

Various designers are offering sales right now. To view all the specially priced patterns, click here.

Happy project planning!

Quilt Pattern Mart has closed operations. All of my patterns are available on Etsy.

 

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Friday, November 18, 2022

Irish Twist Pattern Release / Beauties Pageant 194

 **Get your copy of Irish Twist here**

I’m happy to present a new addition to the From Bolt to Beauty pattern collection ... Meet Irish Twist!

Irish Twist is a new chapter in quilting’s Irish chain story. Here the chains fall to the background, and the in-between spaces take the spotlight. Add in thoughtful fabric placement, and you’ve got a quilt fit for modern tastes.

Irish Twist comes in four sizes:

  • Baby: 38" x 47"
  • Small throw: 50½" x 62½"
  • Large throw: 63" x 78"
  • Twin: 75½" x 93½"

This pattern is a whole-composition design. The different sizes are created by enlarging the individual pieces, not by adding more blocks. To help you plot your fabric placement, there is a coloring page in the pattern as well as an accompanying blog post that talks about value and an alternative way to mock up your quilt top. 

My original Irish Twist was sewn in all solids. The pattern, however, caters to print lovers and even accommodates directional prints so you know how to get great results from the start.

Irish Twist is available as a PDF download in my Etsy shop. You can also find it at Quilt Pattern Mart, where itand my other PDF patternsare specially priced at $9 through November 30.

For some Irish Twist inspiration, check out the testers’ projects at #IrishTwistQuilt on Instagram!

The cover quilt was sewn with Nova by Basic Grey for Moda Fabrics and quilted by Tammie Earnest.

 

**Get your copy of Irish Twist here**

 

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  • Post your finish in the linky tool. (No links to your own giveaway or linky, please!)
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Thursday, November 17, 2022

Planning Fabric Placement for Irish Twist

My latest patternIrish Twist—just released into the world! It’s a quick-to-sew pattern that’s great for beginners and more seasoned quilters alike. (Get your copy here!)

Irish Twist is a whole-composition designthat is, the different sizes are created by enlarging the pieces, not by adding more blocks. In other words, you won’t make a bunch of identical blocks and have the luxury of settling on a layout for them once they’re all sewn. Irish Twist requires a plan from the get-go.

The pattern includes a coloring page to help you design your quilt top. Before you take your colored pencils to paper, however, there are a few things to think about ...

Playing with Value in the Quilt Top

It may be helpful to consider the value of the fabrics you’ll be working with. The three examples below all use the same fabrics (Nova by Basic Grey for Moda Fabrics) but distribute value differently in the quilt.

The high-volume fabrics in these examples include the cranberry fabric and two deep blue fabrics. The low-volume fabric is the small floral with a white background. Everything else can be described as a mid-tone. The black and white versions of each design help in observing these discrepancies in value.

Example 1, which is the pattern’s cover quilt, concentrates the high volumes in the corners and in a large diamond in the center of the quilt. (I hope that description makes sense! It’s what I see when I look at it!) The low-volume fabric is sprinkled along each edge. (In the pattern’s terms, fabrics C, E, and G are high volume; F is low volume.)

 

Example 2 uses high volumes around the entire perimeter and a creates a small X of them in the center. The low-volume fabric appears in four blocks just beyond that X. (In the pattern’s terms, fabrics B, F, and G are high volume; C is low volume.)

 

Example 3 concentrates the high volumes in a small diamond in the center of the quilt and sprinkles them along each edge. Chunks of the low-volume fabric are adjacent to each of the four corners. (In the pattern’s terms, fabrics A, B, and F are high volume; D is low volume.)

You may not think about a fabric pull and the subsequent placement in such terms, but you might decide that you like the look of one of these examples over the others and want to recreate the value distribution similarly in your own project. 

Another place to go to for ideas on palettes and fabric placement is Instagram. My testing crew has already used #IrishTwistQuilt to post pictures of their projects, and wow, there are color and fabric combinations I would never have thought of myself. Check their pictures out here!

An Alternative to the Coloring Page

As mentioned earlier, the Irish Twist pattern comes with a coloring page. If you find that plotting a quilt top with a coloring page is effective, go for it! I rarely use coloring pages, and for this particular pattern, there’s a more effective way to evaluate potential fabrics.

Irish Twist’s cutting instructions include a large square and a small square. Using the small square dimensions for the quilt size you want to make (the small square size is different for each), cut a square for each of the shapes in the pattern top, including the half-shapes along the edge. In other words, for example 3, above, cut 4 of the cranberry floral, 4 of the teal geometric, 8 of the low-volume floral, 8 of the navy floral along the edges, etc. You will cut 49 squares in all.

Use the pattern to lay them out on point to get an idea of how they play together. I’ll be using a white background fabric, so I placed mine on a piece of white batting and then took a picture. (That way, I can view it in grayscale if I want.)

Example 1 in 2-inch squares looks like this ...

 

Pretty cool, right? This exercise can help you get a better idea of what your final quilt top will look like without wasting any fabric. Because I am making a baby-size quilt, I cut 2-inch squares and will use them in my actual project.

Questions? Comments?

This post is just food for thought. There’s no right or wrong way to plot your Irish Twist. And I suspect you already evaluate fabrics placement in an intuitive way, without thinking, Hey, I’m using a low volume here!

I’d love to hear your thoughts on selecting and placing fabrics for this pattern. Leave a comment, whether I’ve confused you (!) or got you thinking. 

Heads-up! If you comment anonymously, I will not be able to respond to you via email. Likewise, if you’re a no-reply blogger, I won’t have access to your email address. You can always include your email in the comment or send your email address to frombolttobeauty [at] gmail [dot] com.

Thanks!

**Get your copy of Irish Twist here**

Friday, November 11, 2022

Modern Maisons / Beauties Pageant 193

I find the humble house shape an intriguing element in quilts. Even in its most basic form, stripped of color or embellishment, the five-sided shape conveys meaning of shelter or home. But add a palette or a little design interest, and it transforms into a symbol of belonging, family, community, and more.

What you see here is Modern Maisons, my submission to the Ruby + Bee Fabric Challenge for QuiltCon 2023. I used the challenge as an opportunity to play with the house shape. (“Maison” is the French word for “house” and the origin of “mansion.”) After making (and scrapping) a few blocks with more intricate piecing, I homed in on bolder, more basic patchwork and watched how the house outline changed those blocks. Foundation paper-piecing was the way to go here, giving me the precision I wanted both with the internal designs and with the thin black outlines.

Originally, I set out to make 16 blocks. Then I decided 9 would do. With the deadline looming, I settled for 6 and made them something special by sewing them in off-set columns and extenuating a few of the motifs into the quilting. 

Will Modern Maisons be juried into QuiltCon? I’ll know in another month. (Edit: It was not! Maybe I will have better luck next year!) One way or another, I’m proud of this finished project and happy to have invested the time in creating it. : )

 

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Friday, November 4, 2022

Sneaky Little Peeks / Beauties Pageant 192

All pictures by Tammie Earnest

I can summarize 90 percent of my sewing this fall in two words: QuiltCon submissions. Sewing up to the submission deadline is not something I recommend, but considering I’ll be attending the conference next February, I was especially interested in finishing a few QuiltCon-worthy projects, in hopes I would see at least one hanging in person in Atlanta. 

I’ve vacillated on whether to reveal these projects before the showthere’s something to be said for keeping them under wraps until the event (presuming they are accepted).

One project I am happy to show you sneaky little peeks of today is my Irish Twist quilt, which has nothing to do with QuiltCon. This is my latest pattern, and it’s slated for release in mid-November.

Unlike my QuiltCon submissionswhich I painstakingly quilted myself!I splurged on this Irish Twist and had it longarmed by Tammie Earnest. I won’t receive the quilted project for a few more days, but Tammie sent me a bunch of pics of her beautiful work ...


 

Whenever I have something longarmed, I always go for the curvy, swirly pantos. After all, I can produce more-linear designs on my own with my walking foot. The panto I choseGinger Flower by Urban Elementzwas especially suited to the prints I used in the quilt top. All of the fabrics come from Nova, an older collection by Basic Grey, and the loopy flowers of the panto match the floral cranberry fabric.

I’ll reveal more of this Irish Twist in Nova, and my testers’ projects, in the weeks ahead!

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The pageant rules are simple:
  • Post your finish in the linky tool. (No links to your own giveaway or linky, please!)
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Click here to enter