Seems Like Scrappy Preview: Annabelle

Well folks, best I can tell, Seems Like Scrappy has been delayed until a June release... So you'll just have to wait a bit longer to get your hands on this goodness, but trust me - it'll be worth it!

Today I wanted to show you the largest quilt in the book, Annabelle:

Photo provided by Martingale, photography by Brent Kane

I was inspired by antique two-color quilts for this design. I wanted to "spiff it up" and changed the basic layout keeping one color as a constant (the red) and making the alternative super scrappy. To keep things interesting, I added in these little stars scattered them about the quilt.

When I design quilts like this one, I try to keep that classic feel and honor the heritage of the quilts from years past. In order to accomplish this task I try to only switch out one thing at a time... First I had the idea of adding the stars and that alone would have been great. This book however isn't called two-color quilts, it's meant to be scrappy! So that is where I decided to scrap up one piece of this puzzle.

The trick to keeping a balance when you have so many fabrics in a quilt like this is to keep it subtle. The mixture of prints used in grays and tans and pinks looks much more harmonious in real life (I promise, pinky swear). When you pair all of those warm tones with that deep dark red, the red is so bold it blends together the rest of the fabrics even when normally you'd think they may not work together.

Now with keeping it subtle, you want your scrappy pieces to be individual enough to stand out on their own when mixed in a grouping like this. If your fabrics all look too similar and don't stand out a bit in the mix, you could sabotage yourself and make it look like you only used three fabrics when you used 20... Why go through all of that work to have it mush in the end?

I elaborate more on this topic in the book and much more with several tips and tricks like I had in my first book, Seamingly Scrappy. I could go on forever about color choices and scrappy quilts, but I will share all of that with you little by little.

Annabelle was one of the few quilts that was named quite easily. I have such a hard time coming up with names for all of my quilts and this one made it easy. Well, easy if you can follow my logic:

* I'm a car girl living in NE Ohio... There are several classic car shows in the area almost every night of the week during the summer (you have to show off those cars when you only have three months or so out of the year to do it!)

* Annabelle has a classic look to me but she's got some spunk with that deep cherry red... it reminds me of those classic cars...

* One of my favorite movies had a ton of cars that were named for identities (Gone in 60 Seconds)

* There used to be this diner a few towns over that was THE PLACE for classic car cruise-ins when I was growing up and it was called Annabelle's Diner.

* Annabelle. Consider this quilt named!

Sometimes the quilt name has little actually to do with the piecing or the design rather than the feeling it exudes. I honestly wish I didn't have to name quilts and could just label them Quilt No. 45, but that's pretty boring, so I look at coming up with names as a brain exercise. It pushes my creativity in a completely different way.

Annabelle is the largest quilt in the book, but one of the easiest to make. The pattern calls for fat quarters and some yardage for the red, but this quilt could take on a completely different feel by switching up the color scheme to suit your needs.

I hope you like this quilt! I know I LOVE it!!! Annabelle and 13 other quilt patterns will be in Seems Like Scrappy, my latest book due out in June (at the moment). Check back here every week as I show you a new quilt from the book up to the release date!