Blog / mini quilt

A few weeks ago, the kind folks over at Riley Blake Designs invited me to participate in their Quilt-It Modern blog tour, which starts today. The tour is all about showcasing the fabric company's impressive range of cotton solids, so I was excited to have the chance to try out their fabrics and work on a new wall quilt design for the shop.

I love looking to geometric patterns, especially tile patterns, for quilt design inspiration. During a night of Pinterest browsing I came across this tile pattern and immediately started envisioning it in fabric and began sketching. My sketch became this mini quilt. I used white and two shades of coral and peach to create hourglass triangle blocks, which replicated the tile design.

I love olive + peach paired together (as evidenced in this recent quilt), so I bound the quilt with a solid olive, and backed it with an olive polka-dot print by Spin Spin. 

I made lots of extra hourglass blocks, so two of these quilts are now available in the shop. Each one has corner triangles and loops for hanging, and will ship with a wooden dowel. 

I really enjoyed working with these solids---they were super soft!---and I can't wait to see what other colors everyone else is working with. You can follow the blog tour, and see all of the quilt projects made for it, by checking out the hashtag #ModernQuiltTour now through July 8. 

Among the classes I'm teaching this spring at Pintuck & Purl is one on the Fancy Fox II block, a quilt pattern designed by Elizabeth Hartman. Using fabrics selected by the shop's owner, Maggie, I created this fun sample for the class.


This fox is larger than those typically found in the Fancy Fox quilts made from the original pattern (this being one of my favorite iterations of it), so this...

We moved into our current house this past May, and I feel like I'm finally settled into my studio enough to share some pictures with you! So I did a bit of straightening up (trust me, it's not always this organized!) and took some photos around the room, if you'd like to see.


The house that we're renting was built in 1898, and my sunny sewing space is on the second floor. It's the largest work...

Ever since I received the latest batch of Maze and Vale fabric panels for the shop, I've been itching to sew with the new designs. I'm quite smitten with the trio of prints that are printed on a gray organic cotton base cloth, so I picked this gorgeous teal heart print to use for my first project, and paired it with coordinating teal and chartreuse prints from my stash.


When it came time to figure out what I wanted to make, I almost immediately thought of the yellow-and-white diamond quilt that I posted recently, but actually made quite a while ago. I loved how the pattern worked with solids and almost solids, so I decided to have a go at making another, smaller version, this time using only prints.


I auditioned a few different low-volume fabrics for the background, before settling on my favorite black-and-white polka dot.  For the backing, I used a scrap of Marimekko vine fabric (I love the pop of eggplant from that lone bud!).


I used the same method of quilting for this version as I did with the original: white outline quilting in the background, and angled teal quilting lines within each of the diamonds. A pretty diamond pattern emerged on the back as a result.


The teal heart print plays so nicely with the other prints, and I really love the mix of hand-printed and commercially printed fabrics. This quilt is now available in the shop, as are individual panels of the heart print. I would absolutely love to see what you would pair this fabric with in your own projects!

Quilt Stats
Finished dimensions: 16" x 21"
Fabrics used include: LoveHearts in Deep Peacock by Maze and Vale; Firefly Whisper from Hello, Bear by Bonnie Christine; chartreuse prints from Chicopee and Hope Valley by Denyse Schmidt; and teal prints from Botanics and Doe by Carolyn Friedlander.
Block tutorial: Half-Rectangle Triangle by Latifah Saafir for the Modern Quilt Guild

Update: I've had quite a few people ask me for a pattern for this quilt. While I still recommend working with the tutorial originally published by the Modern Quilt Guild, Cluck Cluck Sew recently published a pattern for a quilt with a similar look, which may work for you as well.