Seems Like Scrappy Preview: Baskets

I'm home from Market and I have to tell you - have you heard about the #quiltmarkethangover? It's real. We got home late Sunday night and by the time we got in the door and collected our puppies and they settled down, it was super late (for me at least).

Then yesterday unpacking bags and doing laundry and getting into the swing of "normal life" again was just crazy. It doesn't help that Spring Market always falls in the middle of allergy season, but I did what I could yesterday and today I'm attempting to hit the ground running. After sleeping in a bit of course ;)

Today I want to introduce you to Baskets. I know it's not a super original name, but after coming up with the quilts and making them and quilting and binding and writing the patterns and doing the illustrations - my creativity was spent... But I think I spent my creativity on the right areas.

I actually have a second version of this quilt that I will be sharing later this week when I can get photos. Right now the yard is awful with high grass and we really need to get at that first. Poor Paco looks like he's out on a jungle safari each time he goes out. We cut it right before we let for Market, but it's been the perfect combination of warm and wet here and it grew like mad. So, look for the alternate version of this quilt later this week.

Baskets is made with a combination of fat eighths and fat quarters. It doesn't take much fabric at all and it's pretty fast to cut out and piece. You may already have the fabrics needed for this sitting and waiting for you to get started. Otherwise, this would be a great class and really fun to kit (for you quilt shops out there).

Even though this pattern looks quite traditional in this colorway, I originally thought about making an alternative in a super modern scheme with a mixture of low volume prints for the background and crazy bold fabrics for the baskets. Think about it with a Jen Kingwell inspiration if you would... My alternate version turned out fairly traditional as well. I stumbled upon the perfect fabrics I had stashed for another quilt that I forgot about and I wanted to try this pattern again, so I did.

This quilt was well received (as well as the alternate) at my Schoolhouse at Market and I can't wait to see your version of it too.

Baskets is a decent lap size quilt, or it could be a large wall hanging depending on your space, but it can always grow to the size you're looking for with borders too. Just keep that in mind. I think these quilts might be the perfect back-of-the-couch size for that little added quilty decoration without putting holes in your walls or climbing on ladders.

Once again, this quilt and several others are found in my new book, Seems Like Scrappy, that will be released in just a couple weeks - June 2nd! Look for this book shortly afterwards at your LQS or you can preorder your own signed copy from my online shop. Enjoy your preorder from my shop at a 25% discount, good until the books show up on my doorstep!

Look for more quilt previews from the book here each Monday and I will be doing a special post for the alternate Baskets quilt later this week. Also, check back here often over the next month or so, it's a super exciting time here at the studio and I have so much to tell you!!! Have a great day!

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!