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!