Peacock Proud - New Quilt Pattern Release

I'm pleased to share my latest quilt pattern with you - Peacock Proud! 

This pattern is designed specifically for 2-1/2" precut strips paired with coordinating yardage.  It's a great pattern for showcasing your fabrics. 

The cover quilt is made using the Peacock Galore collection by Claudia Pfeil for Island Batik and Soft & Bright batting from The Warm Company. 

Digital patterns are available for purchase and immediate download in my Etsy shop with print patterns coming soon :) 

Benartex Precut Project Hop - Better Not Pout by Nancy Halvorson

I am so excited to be part of Benartex's Precut Project Hop !  I hope you have been enjoying the hop as much as I have been.  It's so much fun to see all the beautiful fabrics and patterns that are being showcased.   If you are finding the hop for the first time today, be sure to hop on Benartex's Facebook or Instagram pages for the full tour! 

I'm also equally excited to have the opportunity to make a quilt using Nancy Halvorson's Better Not Pout fabric collection.  

Nancy is one of my favorite designers and there is so much I love about this collection - you must check it out.  

I used my new Courthouse Corners pattern which is designed specifically for fat quarters.  The pattern is available for digital download in my Etsy shop and the print pattern will be available soon too!

I had a lot of fun with the layout for this quilt and arranged the blocks from light to dark diagonally across the quilt.  The pattern really showcases the fabrics!  Here are a few more photos of my Courthouse Corners quilt.   Enjoy!

Marmalade published in Annie's Time Friendly Quilts

I'm excited to share one my latest designs, Marmalade, which is published in Annie's Time-Friendly Quilts.  

Photo Cred:  Annie's

Marmalade is made with 10" precut squares from Island Batik's Sakura Collection designed by Kathy Engle for Lovebug Studios.  I absolutely love this collection and it's the same one I used for my Island Batik Back to School blog hop quilt. 

This quilt can easily be made in a day - just grab a package of precut squares and some coordinating yardage.  It's a great quilt for a young person learning to sew or kiddos could help you with color placement of the squares. 

I pieced the quilt using Aurifil thread and used The Warm Company's new Warm 80/20 batting when I quilted it.  To keep the project Time-Friendly I quilted it on my Statler computerized longarm using TK Quilting & Design's Sea Shell E2E digital quilting pattern. 

Marmalade is available in Annie's Time-Friendly Quilts which features 23 quick and easy projects that are all simply adorable!  It is available at Annie's Craft Store. 

Photo Cred: Annie's

Be sure to follow me on IG: @MasterpieceQuilting or at Masterpiece Quilting on Facebook for sneak peaks and updates. 

Island Batik - May's Modern Batik Challenge

Our challenge this month for the Island Batik Brand Ambassador's was the Modern Batik Challenge.   This challenge started out rather challenging for me (hmmmm, maybe that's why they call it a challenge :) )  

Stereotypically, I normal design Modern Quilts with yards of white fabric, some random splashes of bright solids and lots of intricate quilting.  So the challenge for me was ME - I had to get outside my box and think PURELY about the design - and then plug the fabrics into the equation.  It took about a week for me to come up with the design... I had another design sketched that I kept playing with but it just wasn't coming together - then one night, right as I was getting ready for bed, this design materialized in my mind.  So I quickly grabbed a pencil and sketched it on graph paper.  In the morning I took one look and was sold on it!  At the studio, I started plugging in fabrics.  I had been saving my Lake Life collection of fabrics for this project and they fit effortlessly! (which was a good thing since I had spent a lot of mental effort on the design!)

So without further adieu - I present to you Modern Chain ....

The design has many of the same features as any other modern quilt - lots of negative space and a very strong design element.

From the precut 2-1/2" strips, I sorted out the blue strips for the binding, the dark green strips for one chain and gold strips for the other chain and the perfect muted green for when the two chains crisscross each other.   The background fabric features beautiful fish motifs that appear to be swimming around the quilt.

And in true confession style - I actually designed and pieced the quilt back in April and it has been sitting patiently waiting to be quilted.  While I had a very custom quilt plan in mind, I knew I didn't want to overwhelm the batiks with by quilting them to death - so instead I opted for an overall design that mimics the swirls in the background fabric.

As I was catching a few photos tonight, I decided to drape the quilt on the swing on our patio.  I hadn't even thought about how inviting it would look there! 

Like most things in my life, the "paw of approval" is very important and Miss Zoey says this quilt is a keeper :)

Romantic Charms

In Annie's Quilting with Precuts, I had two quilts selected for the magazine.  One was Zippers, the Cover Quilt.  If you want to learn more about it, check out my previous blog.

The second quilt is Romantic Charms....

Romantic Charms is made with 5" precut squares and a neutral solid that compliments the colors in the precut pack.   I really wanted the charms to be the focal point of the quilt, so I used a light peach solid. For the sample quilt, I selected Little Miss Sunshine Charm Packs designed by Vanessa Goertzen of Lella Boutique for Moda.  I loved how there was a wide range of colors in the charm packs.

This is truly a throw quilt measuring 56" square. It would be perfect for covering up with while watching TV or could even do double duty as a table cloth for a picnic. 

Zippers - Cover Quilt of Annie's Quilting with Precuts

Zippers made the COVER !

Finding out that my Zippers quilt was selected as the cover quilt of Annie's Quilting with Precuts was the best Christmas present.  I actually found out a few days before Christmas but needed to keep it under wraps until the magazine went on sale to the public.

This quilt is made with 2-1/2" precut strips paired with neutral solid.  I selected a jelly roll of Bobbins and Bits designed by Pat Sloan for Moda.  I fell in love with the fresh color palette.

While I was working on this quilt late last summer, I had several quilts in progress all with similar publisher deadlines.  As the projects were attempting to merge together on my cutting table, I had to QUICKLY figure out a way to keep them organized.  I grabbed the first thing available - a vintage enamel wash pan.

I am avid collector of all things antique and vintage.  (That sounds much better than auction-junkee!)  So it only made sense that I had several of these pans at the studio.  And the best part - they work great!  I had enough room to put the yardage along with the unrolled jelly roll.  As I was cutting the pieces, I could easily toss the extra pieces back into the pan to keep them together.  I now have 4 or 5 of these pan in the studio with projects-in-progress in them!

If you make a quilt using my pattern, be sure to share a photo of it with me on my Facebook Page -   Masterpiece Quilting   I would love to see your version!