Into the Woods - Cascade Quilt Pattern

Green is one of my all time favorite colors. And leaves are one of my favorite design elements. I use leafy themes in my home. I take tons of leaf photographs. I use leafy fabric in my quilts. Today I'd like to share one of my leafy quilts with you.

Into the Woods was finished last year. I used the Cascade quilt pattern which is the most popular of my patterns. You can find it in my Etsy shop or the new Blueprint shop site (formerly Craftsy)

I wanted a woodsy feeling of light filtering through trees so I arranged the values with most of the lighter prints in the center.

Looking at the prints in black and white really helped with this.

Once the leafy prints were positioned, I added browns and greens to elude to the tree trunks. Again placing most of the darker values to the outside edges. An allover leafy quilting pattern finished it off.

Leftover bonus half square triangles from the front were pieced together into a long strip for the back. The green on the back isn't quite as bright/yellow as this photo shows.

I couldn't be happier with the final result. Into the Woods lives on the back of my couch in our family room and works beautifully with the other leafy decor in the room.

I'd like to leave you with a few recent photos of the original Cascade quilt featured in the pattern. The colors have always reminded me of Monet so what better place to take a few photos than the Monet Garden at Denver's Hudson Gardens.

And lastly, this photo taken a few years ago in the Colorado mountains which really shows off the true colors of the quilt.

One of these days I'd love to get a good photo of Cascade with a waterfall given the quilt name. A lovely tropical waterfall would be perfect but they're a little hard to come by here in Colorado.  : )

Happy quilting to you . . .

It's been ages since I've joined any linky parties so I'm linking up with Wendy and the Peacock Party and Kelly's Needle and Thread Thursday.

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Blogger's Quilt Festival: Small Quilt Entry

Welcome to my Blogger's Quilt Festival post. If you're brand new to my blog, I do hope you'll look around a little. I'm a graphic designer turned quilter with a love of strong graphics, bold colors and an affinity for large scale prints. Thank you ever so much for stopping by. I want to give a big round of applause to Amy for putting on this virtual quilt show twice a year. It's always so good.

Now I'd like to introduce Tequila Sunrise, my entry in the Small Quilt category. This quilt is 42" x 58",
a nice small lap size made specially for my daughter.

Tequila Sunrise is my latest make using the Cascade quilt pattern. I had this great collection of Amy Butler fabrics in the orange/teal colorway and pulled several other fabrics by Kaffe Fassett and Tula Pink that had similar coloring.

I would really love to get a photo with a great sunrise but getting up that early isn't my strong point. Maybe someday. I took this fun shot last week though and would like to go back when the lighting is better and get a few more shots. The color washed out a bit.

This shot was taken shortly after I finished the quilt in the spring. Another location I'd like to revisit.

If you'd like to read my original post about this quilt it can be found here.
I find it amazing how different fabrics and different fabric placement can change a design. That's the part of pattern designing that I really love to play around with. Just look at the difference between Tequila Sunrise and my original Cascade on the right. Fabric and position make all the difference!

I love designing my own quilts. Most are for my home and family plus some charity work through my local modern guilds. I turn a few of my designs into PDF quilt patterns that are sold through Craftsy and in my Etsy shop in case you're interested.

Thanks again for stopping by. Hope you are enjoying all the beautiful quilts in the festival. You can see my other entry here.

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Cascade Amy Butler Style

My newest finish . . . Tequila Sunrise.

I've been wanting to make a new quilt with my Cascade pattern and when these lovely, mostly Amy Butler, fabrics found their way to the top of my stash it was time. After months of winter drab, some intense color therapy was definitely in order. Think tropical sunsets or desert blooms.

In the beginning, I pulled several fabrics for consideration. Some are Kaffe Fassett. There's also some Tula Pink and Valorie Wells. But mostly it's Amy Butler prints from her Bright Heart and Soul Blossoms collections. While not all are from the same fabric line or designer, they are mostly from the same manufacturer so the coloring works quite well together.

To start, I auditioned the fabrics on my design wall to determine which ones worked. I eliminated the far left top row as too white, the 4th and 5th from the right in the middle row because they had too much green/blue and the far right bottom row plus the big floral hanging down lower. Leo was a great help in the selection process. He really knows his colors.

Once the final palette was chosen, the cutting got underway. I just love to see the pile of trimmings build up. Even though none of this is really useable I still have trouble throwing them away. I've been known to throw trimmings like these into glass jars just for the color. Now I toss them in a bag to be used later for pet bed stuffing. What can I say? It's hard to let go . . .

With the pieces cut, the next step was figuring out the arrangement of prints. I started by nailing down the large square arrangement on my design wall. I ended up placing the cool colors in somewhat of a value sequence from dark to light. The colors are so intense and saturated there isn't a great deal of value change so it's mostly a contrast of color rather than value. After the large square positions are determined, I placed the small squares that form the triangles by folding them over on the diagonal.

Piecing the top went quickly once my design decisions were made. That's one of the things I love about the Cascade pattern . . . it goes together fast. All the seams nest so the alignment is easy too.

Basting isn't my favorite thing to do. Usually I clean the floor, then spread it all out and baste on my hands and knees. Talk about sore knees and lower back!  So this time I used my folding craft table. I could only do part of it at a time and was a little worried the back might not be smooth enough but it all worked perfectly. I can't see doing a very big quilt this way but for quilts up to about 60" wide it works fine. And to think I nearly sold this table because I wasn't using it. Whew . . . glad I didn't. It's coming in handy for a lot of things. And my back is happy.

I quilted wandering wavy lines from top to bottom. The back is pieced with a row of blocks and I needed to make sure these were as straight as possible to the quilt front when I basted the layers. I think it turned out pretty darn good.

Finishing up wasn't without a small glitch. I managed to twist the binding when I sewed the ends together. It wasn't the first time and I'm sure it won't be the last time I make this mistake. Bet you've done that one at least once too. At least it's an easy fix.

I usually hand stitch my bindings but this time I used the machine binding method where you sew the binding to the back (instead of the front) and then fold it over to the front and top stitch it down. I like this machine method because I can see how the stitching lines up along the binding. It's not without it's problems though. For one, the binding is just never as straight as my hand stitched binding are. For another, I don't love how the stitching shows on the front. But it's better than when I stitch in the ditch and blindly try (hope) to catch the binding on the back. That method never works well for me. I'll keep trying and experimenting with my stitching alignment and maybe I'll get better and it will look nicer. I used aqua thread on top to match the binding and orange in the bobbin to make the backing. Worked fairly well. Do you have a preferred machine binding technique?

I tossed it on my studio chair last night after finishing the binding and first thing this morning a certain fuzzy girl found her way underneath. Isn't she sweet?

If you're interested in Cascade you can find it on Craftsy and in my Etsy shop.

Linking up with NTT at My Quilt Infatuation.

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Thank You!

The results for the Craftsy Pattern Designer awards are in . . . Cascade was the official runner-up. Thank you so much to all of you who took the time to vote.  I really appreciate it.    : )

Here are a few other quilts made from the Cascade pattern. Same pattern . . .  very different looks.

For those of you who are die-hard Kaffe fans, I have another Kaffe based pattern in the works that should be out early next year so stay tuned. It just might include some of these beauties.

Thanks again for your support. Congratulations to all the winners!

You can find the Cascade pattern in my Etsy shop.

Craftsy Pattern Designer Awards

I recently did some serious and much needed tidying up around the house and refreshed the decor for the fall season. I like to use quilts as part of my decorating and actually hang many of them here and there.  But one quilt I've never used in the house is Cascade . . . my all time favorite. It's been primarily used by my daughter, but is home right now, so I decided to hang it on my bedroom wall. It's not a fall quilt by any means but it fits my bedroom perfectly.

Can I just say I feel in love again. The colors are so calming and the fabrics so inviting that I find myself drawn to exploring the design while I lay in bed. And I love seeing it when I wake up in the morning. Maybe it sounds silly but I truly do enjoy this quilt more than any others I've made. I love the colors, the fabrics and I love the extra matching pillows made from the leftover HSTs.

I also love this photo taken over the summer in the mountains.

This all leads me to something I don't usually do here on my blog. I'd like to ask you to nominate my Cascade pattern for the Craftsy Pattern Design Award?

Craftsy is sponsoring their first Pattern Design Awards and all patterns are eligible to win. Plus, if you submit a nomination, you are entered for the chance to win a free Craftsy class and they have some wonderful classes by many top notch well known quilters. All you need to do is go here and enter this URL for my Cascade pattern. You can also go here to learn more about the contest. Heck I'll even shamelessly invite you to tell you friends and they might win a free class too.

Thanks for supporting me and my little pattern shop. I'm not a big name designer nor do I try to be. I'm just a quilter who loves the process of designing and writing patterns and of course making a little $ here and there to feed my addiction.   : )

In closing, I'll leave you with a this little bit of fall inspiration. Cheers.

My Favorite Quilt

I'm playing along with the fun series My Favorite Quilt over at SewMamaSew. Pop over and get a peek at some wonderful quilts and read along to see why they are favorites.

Tell us about your favorite quilt. When did you make it? What pattern did you use? 
My all time favorite quilt is Cascade. I'm a huge fan of Kaffe Fassett fabrics and look to create designs that can showcase the fabrics well. The original design for Cascade had been taped to my wall for a good number of months before I finally started pulling fabrics and playing around. That was about four years ago. I have since gone on to create a pattern for the design and it's proven to be quite popular.

What do you like best about the quilt?
One of the things I like best about this quilt is the combinations of fabrics. I'm particularly drawn in by beautiful large scale prints and love letting my eye wander around the surface of the quilt taking in all the different prints. The other thing I love is the color scheme. The refreshing greens and aquas of the color palette along with the spark of purple just feel so relaxing and fresh to me. As the quilt evolved it began to evoke images of being in a lush tropical garden and viewing the foliage though the cascade of a waterfall . . . thus the name Cascade. One of these days I'd like to get a really nice photo of the quilt next to a waterfall but for now these will do nicely.

What memories or people does the quilt make you think of?
This quilt will always make me think of my daughter because she loved it so much she took it to college with her to hang on a big wall in her apartment. It will forever be hers.  : )

How did you grow as a quilter while making it?
I grew as a quilter more in the area of design than actual quilting skills because Cascade is such an easy quilt to make. I did play with new machine quilting ideas by using free form curved lines done with my walking foot and variegated thread. I think it complements and softens the shapes of the triangles quite nicely. I also didn't want the scraps from the trimmed corners going to waste so I made three pillows from the leftovers. Now I look for ways to put scraps to use right as the quilt top is being sewn.

If you could make this quilt again, what (if anything) would you do differently?
I have remade this quilt design several times, each time discovering a different way to use the basic concept and come up with something totally new. I absolutely love the design process and finding ways to bring a new and different look to the same design. This exploration has become a regular part of my patterns. Here's a few of the variations I've made along with the bonus projects from the scraps.

If you read my blog you've seen this one before, but I hope you enjoyed reminiscing with me about My Favorite Quilt. What's your favorite quilt?

To Market To Market . . .

I'm going to Quilt Market for the very first time later this week and am soooo excited!  Just to be there to see all the new fabrics and quilts and fabrics and quilts . . .  and fabrics is going to be so much fun.

One of the quilts I will get to see is my very own "Rhythm & Blues" which was accepted as part of the Modern Quilt Guild Showcase. I feel very honored that it was chosen to hang along side all the other creative quilts that modern quilters are making all around the world. The whole Modern movement is really making headway into more traditional venues and best of all is introducing many new people to the joy of quilting.

At the last minute I decided to make a market tote bag, a business card holder and a lanyard.

Finished the tote bag today and love how it turned out. I used this tutorial by Monica Solorio-Snow of Happy Zombie. It's a great bag with 6 pockets on the outside. I altered it a little to fit my needs by making it bigger. Figured I would need more space for all the lovelies I hope to fill it with at Sample Spree. Now if only I could fill it with extra $$$ first so I could buy more.  : )

Tonight I plan to make a business card holder for all these. I finally got real, official business cards printed up. They arrived yesterday and I'm pretty happy with how well they turned out although they are very very slick. I splurged and had a photo of my Cascade quilt printed on the back. This pattern is my best seller and still one of my personal favorites.

We'll see if I get the lanyard done. Jennifer at Ellison Lane recently had a nice little tutorial on making a double sided version that prompted me to think about it.

So these are my main WIPs for this week. Linking up with Lee at Freshly Pieced for WIP Wednesday.

While I'm at Market, I plan to soak in all the inspiration. I'm prepared to be totally overwhelmed. And I hope my new comfort shoes will actually be comfortable.  haha . . . I can hope right?

If you're going to Market, I'd love to meet you. I'll be at the Modern Quilt Guild Meet Up Saturday evening. If not, I'll be posting next week about my Market experience. Stay tuned.

Snappy Quilts

There is a wonderful little quilt shop here in the Denver metro area that I want to tell you about. It's called Snappy Quilts and it's a great shop full of modern fabrics.

Their tagline is Modern Fabrics, Fresh Ideas and I think that sums up the shop quite well.

They have a large selection of Kaffe Fassett fabrics so that makes them an instant winner in my book. There's also a large selection of Art Gallery Fabrics along with Amy Butler and many other modern lines. It's eye candy everywhere you look. Go to their website for a peak at the shop and all the fabulous fabrics. Get directions and store hours too. They are open late on Thursdays which I love.

Snappy Quilts is one of the first shops to carry my patterns which is a big thrill for me. Plus they are hosting my very first trunk show!  Here are a few photos of the day I delivered the quilts.

Cascade quilt pattern

Facets quilt pattern

That's owner Nancy Boyd, aka "Snappy" on the right. Her bio says she's been called Snappy for years.

If you're ever in the Denver area, I highly recommend a stop at Snappy Quilts. It's well worth the visit. They're on the south side of town not too far from Ikea and Park Meadows mall. When you're there, say hi to Nancy, Janice and the rest of the staff and tell them Anne at SpringLeaf Studios sent you.