Slow Dance

This is my "Slow Dance" quilt, and is featured in this May 2015 American Quilter magazine. 

This quilt was inspired by the traditional Tennessee Waltz pattern, with a few modifications.

You might recognize the design from another quilty friend of mine, Lee of Freshly Pieced, because she has an almost identical pattern. She and I made the quilts completely separately of one another -- just both liked the way the clever piecing creates the illusion of curves! (And Lee uses paper piecing for part of hers, while I use templates and rotary cutting). My quilt was slated to be published in an upcoming magazine, and she used hers for the DS solids competition -- no bad feelings or scandal here... we assure you! :)

For quilting, I did swirls in the white negative space, and an orange peel type design in the colored diamonds. This is absolutely one of my favorite quilts! 

This is the palette inspiration for my color choices (from design seeds.com), along with the backing fabric (my favorite!) 

This quilt has happily lived on our couch for months! We love it! 

I have a few extra copies of the magazine (I'm also posting on IG), but you can email me here if you'd like one! $6 + $2.50 shipping

Roundhouse is ready! (And Festival and sale!)

If you're stopping by from the Blogger's Quilt Festival - Welcome!

I forgot that one could make two entries in to the festival, and so, Rendezvous was my first, and I decided this will be my second (since I got the pattern finished this weekend).

I blogged about this quilt before, so many of you have undoubtedly already seen it, but if not, here is my Roundhouse.

This quilt is special to me for a few reasons.

1) It was my first ever magazine published quilt.
I work part-time as a pattern editor with American Quilter magazine, and happily, they liked this design of mine enough to publish it!

(This is the cover of the issue, with Amy's gorgeous Spinning Wheels)

2) It was my all Anna Maria spectrum quilt (a quilt on my bucket list, that I'd been wanting to make after meeting the lovely Mrs. Horner).

It was so indulgent working with so many of her prints together!

and 3) It lives on my couch and served as part of a fort today.

(I should have got a picture).

This is a wonderfully fun quilt to piece, whether you go scrappy or high contrast. (You can see more options of the design in my original post about it). The quilt uses a basic house-shaped piece and half-square triangles, without any Y-seams.

I even have an acrylic template available to make for easier cutting.

Specs:
72" square
Made by me with all Anna Maria Horner fabrics
Quilted by Lindsay Széchényi at EileenQuilts.com
Pattern available here.
Pattern and template available here.
Linked to the ROYGBIV quilts at the Festival.

Use code: FallFestival for 20% off everything in my pattern shop through November 1.
(Including brand new Rendezvous pattern)

Thank you for visiting!

I do love this quilt. ♥

This and that and a giveaway...

Thank you for all the love and support on my Roundhouse Quilt!
I got my copy of the magazine in the mail last week, and it was a really good feeling.  I think my favorite was how excited my husband was to get the magazine, or showing the picture to Steiger and asking him if he recognized anything (because you can bet that he's running around in the background of all my quilty photo shoots).  He sheepishly said, "That's Mommy's quilt." Making an all Anna Maria Horner spectrum quilt was on my quilty "bucket list," so it was extra exciting to be able to publish it.  And I really love the pattern too.



I have a few extra copies of the magazine to sell with the templates that are up in my little shop.

The cover quilt, made by Amy Friend, is amazing! I just love her creativity here!



I want to give away a copy of the magazine and a template.  If you'd like to enter - leave a comment here!  Pin the Roundhouse (or share on facebook or be a follower) for an extra entry.



Can you believe I hadn't bought any fabric since April?  (I checked and double-checked my statements to confirm that!)  But then placed a few orders to celebrate.  And then I think I might have got a case of "one yard is too many, and twenty aren't enough."

Here is a FQ bundle of Anna Maria's re-released Hand Drawn Garden (you can get it here from Beth at Stash Modern Fabrics, or from Amanda at Westwood Acres).  The social climber is one of my favorite prints; I'm going to need to get yardage to make something with that (or back a quilt or something).  And I actually used a lot of my AMH stash to make my Roundhouse quilt.  It *clearly* needed a bit of replenishing.



I also got this great bundle from Beth at Stash Modern Fabrics today.  Mostly Briar Rose and a Squared Elements, with a couple others thrown in.  I LOVE this stack, and plan to use some of it this weekend.





So pretty!  This is why I quilt! I can't help myself!

I have been loving my little pattern editing gig with American Quilter, but one down side is that it takes most of my sewing time.  But I'm all caught up on assignments, and this weekend I plan to do some sewing.  I took this pile of low volume background pieces outside this week to cut while the kiddos were playing (I love doing that - and p.s. most of these came from Amanda at Westwood Acres).



Hopefully I'll have something to show you soon with these!  That's the plan at least!  (Along with a couple custom quilts, a couple patterns to write... you know the drill!) ♥

Anyway - if you'd like to enter to win a copy of the August/September American Quilter magazine, with an acrylic Roundhouse template, don't forget to leave a comment!  (Or you can just buy one).

And have a great weekend!

♥ Tracey

Roundhouse - Finished and Published!

This is my Roundhouse quilt.

This is also my first magazine published quilt pattern!  You can find the full pattern in this month's American Quilter magazine.

The story behind this quilt -- 

When Scarlet was about four months old, I was able to attend one of Anna Maria Horner's classes in person.  She was teaching her Patchwork Prism quilt, and though I chose different fabrics for that quilt, I was inspired to make a spectrum quilt using as many of Anna Maria's fabrics as I could.  

For the design, an architectural feature behind one of the characters on Once Upon a Time caught my eye.  I used the idea for my Pillow talk pillow, and reworked the size and layout so there would be no inset seams. 

I was THRILLED when I realized that one of my acrylic templates from my Cosmic quilt fit perfectly to make the Roundhouse block.  When paired with some half-square triangles, you get a very easy to construct block with the primary design of Roundhouses, and secondary design of pinwheels.

To make the quilt, I cut and arranged all my house shaped pieces in color order.  

Then, starting from the top left, and using purpley-pinks, I laid out my pieces alternating light and dark values. Some of the pattern is not completely obvious due to my fabric selections on this, but I love the scrappy spectrum effect.  

Lindsey made an alternate version of the quilt for me using Happy Go Lucky and white.  Definitely gives a different dynamic.  

Here, with the quilt mocked up in black and white, you can clearly see the primary and secondary designs.  Super versatile pattern, no?

Lindsay from EileenQuilts.com did the quilting, and it is gorgeous!  She did a fairly dense all over paisley design.  I wanted something with movement all over it, and this was a perfect design.  I have worked with Lindsay many times before, and highly recommend her if you're looking for longarm quilting services.

The quilt is backed in one of my favorite AMH prints from her Field Study line, and bound in Buttoned up in Ink (thanks to Kelly).

I expect to be receiving a few copies of this month's American Quilter magazine, but if you would like to buy a template, it is available through my shop.  I will have the pattern available for sale separately once the magazine is off newsstands.

Overall though, I love this quilt, and hope you do too.