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Let's Get Modern

I am continuing my journey as a pattern maker.

I have 3 completed patterns, with the original quilts pieced and quilted and on the covers.  

Each pattern features a different piecing technique:
 
#101 - Paper Foundation Piecing
#102 - Hexagonal Pineapple with "Y" seams piecing
#103 - Conventional piecing a 9-patch center, in a 9-patch block

With those done for the traditional quilter who loves the historical quilts, now I am working on the modern/contemporary version of each one.

#101, Spring's Glorious Pathway 
will be subtle, soft colors with a lot of 
negative space for textured quilting.





#102, Grateful Comfort 
will feature a lot 
of Tula Pink fabric with chartreuse centers 
and a wild old large print shower curtain fabric!  
I am so excited about this one.  To accent all that brightness, 
I have some browns to grays.  Can't wait.






#103, Starlit Crossroads 
will be crazy
 greens with melon colors and gray to
 beige accents.  So stay tuned as I make progress!





I love designing quilts!  Patterns, on the other hand are a bit more challenging.  I can draft a pattern on graph paper; do all the fabric calculations, all the piecing drawings and numbers, but getting all the specific directions out of my mind and onto paper is a challenge.  

As quilters, we know what to do and forget that everyone reading our pattern doesn't necessarily have our years of knowledge and skills.  So to make sure you cover all the bases it can take a lot of words and paper!

And that doesn't even begin to cover the color and final look of the quilt process.  That is just the construction.

I tend to use a lot of scraps from my stash in color groups, so often, relaying yardage requirements to the pattern is also difficult.  I have a picture in my mind of the look I want to achieve in the quilt and I just start sewing elements, blocks, strips and then when they are all done I play with the layout.  Nothing is planned ahead.  It is all serendipitous.  And I am never too precious about the final outcome.

So I will continue to produce patterns, here and there.  I will continue to attempt to get all the directions on the paper.  But I always hope that you will take my design, throw it in the air and let it land as your own!

Help me out here...  Let me know what you like to see in a well written pattern?

Thanks, Keep on piecing!

Jill




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