The fabric has been bought and now it's time to decide on the quilt design. I'm not quite sure what I am going make just yet, all I know is that I want to make quilt for our bed. It is going to be a big project and it certainly won't be a quilt project that I can make in a weekend! I want the project to be challenging and to try out some new patchwork and piecing techniques.
I've been busy book marking lovely quilts in my favourite quilt magazine Love Patchwork & Quilting. I've bought this gorgeous magazine from issue one and we are now at issue eleven. If you haven't already taken a look I'd highly recommend buying a copy! Love Patchwork & Quilting has a fantastic fresh design, includes modern quilt designs and inspiring projects. I love the fabric range and colour palettes the magazine uses and adore the round up of new fabrics in the industry. Each time I read it I get so excited and want to make something. I've been getting lots of inspiration from the magazine about how I could make my quilt and I am slowly working out ideas of what to do. I think I have about 6 quilts so far that I want to make so I will have to start narrowing down the options!
As I mentioned in my post about buying pre-cuts I have a real love of Camille Roskelley and her gorgeous colour palette and fabric design. I regularly read her lovely blog Simplify and I have both of her books. I really enjoy seeing how many different designs that you can achieve with pre-cuts. I'm slowly working my way through Camille's Craftsy course too and starting to get ideas and learning new techniques of speedy piecing.
I want to create a quilt that shows off the gorgeous fabric but also something that is a little different and designed by me. I'm torn as I would love to have a quilt with a consistent design but I don't want to get bored, I really want to learn new piecing skills so I think it may involve something a little different.
What better way to learn lots of skills than to create a sampler quilt! There are lots of traditional sampler quilts out there but I want something that I could create that I'd be really proud of and that I could gradually make over a number of months. A few years ago the Farmer's Wife Quilt was a huge trend in the quilt making blogosphere and I am seriously considering making my own. The book looks so old fashioned as the sampler squares use the dark and muddy fabrics that I'm really not keen on. Many quilters including Camille Roskelley have taken on the challenge and created a Farmer's Wife Quilt using bright modern and fresh fabrics to give the patterns a new lease of life. There are 111 different quilt blocks you can make measuring 6.5 by 6.5 inches for each complete block. The problem is that the individual shapes in the book are not given with dimensions, you have to print off the shapes and draw round them. I'm not sure it's what I want to do but I may do a bit of a trial to see if I have the patience. I know I'll learn a lot as there are some really complicated and fiddly designs!
Then there's Tula Pink, a fab personality in the quilt making world who has fabric lines, books and quilt designs under her belt. I bought her book 100 Modern Quilt Blocks this year and I love it. There are measurements of each block and shape used as well as ideas of assembling the quilt at the end. The book is really appealing as Tula uses lovely bright fabrics and makes it feel achievable, rather than a dark art of the Farmer's Wife Quilt book. The squares in her book also assemble to 6.5 by 6.5 inches and look really fresh and modern.
There are so many ideas that I'm working through at the moment. I've got some limits in terms of the fabric pre-cuts I have bought but there are plenty of options to make gorgeous designs with these. At the moment I'm thinking about going for a combination of my favourite blocks from each of the sampler quilt books and plan to make a few trial blocks to see what I like.
Watch this space to see how I get on!
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