Two Quilts in One Issue -- McCall's Quilting July/August 2018

Who would have thought it possible? I have not one, but two quilts in the same issue of a quilting magazine. The current issue of McCall's Quilting -- July/August 2018 -- to be exact.

 

And here's the proof in the table of contents. My quilts are featured on pages 32 and 62!

The first quilt is called Parade of Stars. (I originally named it Stars, Stripes, and Geese, but that name didn't fly with the editors. Oh well.)

The request was for a quilt featuring stars and stripes, and there are 15 stars in this patriotic quilt. But, as you can see, two rows of small red flying geese replace two rows of stripes in my homage to the US flag. And a column of larger  blue flying geese represent the field of stars. In all that's 208 small flying geese and 114 blue flying geese. I chose to paper piece them as a connected row of units, rather than sew them individually and then sew the geese together. I think this also makes them more precise.

 I was excited to use Basic Grey's Grunge fabrics for this quilt. It's unusual for me to make a quilt that uses only four fabrics, but I didn't think this would work the same with scrappy fabrics, even if they were in similar colors.

This would be a great quilt of valor.

So, quilt number two is named Whirlygig (which I originally named Pinwheels All Around). In this case, I definitely like the name the editors came up with better than the name I had picked.

I originally designed this block for Quiltmaker Magazine's 100 Blocks Vol. 15. You can see my blog post about the block and see other quilt ideas using this block HERE.

I was especially thrilled to be able to use the handcrafted batik fabric line Chroma by Alison Glass for Andover Fabrics. When I was originally asked to turn this block into a quilt (in fall of 2017), Chroma was just about ready to be released and there was quite a buzz about the fabric collection. I think it was the perfect choice for this quilt.

And, yes, there are a lot of pinwheels -- 70 black pinwheels and 20 blocks comprising 80 offset pinwheels.

In addition to these two quilts in the July/August issue McCall's quilting, I had a quilt in the July/August issue of Quiltmaker (blog post is HERE).  And I have a quilt that is in the July/August issue of Fons and Porter Quilting Quickly. It should be released any day now. So four quilts in three current issues of quilting magazines. Yes, I was busy during the winter months working on these quilts.

Triple Exposure -- July/August 2018 Quiltmaker Magazine

The first of four original quilts I designed and made this year for magazines is in the July/August 2018 issue of Quiltmaker Magazine.

This issue is now available online at The Quilting Company, and will be available in stores at the end of May.

The request that came from the magazine was to design a quilt that had some "hidden" surprises -- such as an alternate block that emerges where the blocks come together. In my case, I designed the quilt with three hidden surprises.

First, by using a white fabric with small black dots in the corners, in combination with a simple sashing and and black cornerstone, a shoo-fly block emerges where the blocks come together.

Second, by using three values of fabrics in each block and a somewhat busy quilting pattern, it almost seems to me that the pinwheels are spinning.

And, third, if you look closely, the center of each block also has a small pinwheel in the same black and white pin-dot fabric.

This was a fun project that is paper foundation pieced. When it is all said and done, each block has 57 pieces -- 14 paper-pieced pieces in each quadrant of the block, and a black square appliqued to the center of the block. It wasn't difficult, but it probably took longer than any other quilt I've made in recent years.

A tip is to avoid using a large-scale print in the blocks. Since the the pinwheel sections are broken up due to paper piecing, you need fabrics that don't emphasize the fact that they are made from smaller pieces sewn together to look like a triangle.

Enjoy!