Friday, October 26, 2012

Blogger's Quilt Festival - Deco the Halls

Deco the Halls is one of my all-time favorite quilts and I am thrilled to enter it in the Blogger's Quilt Festival!  I love the simple color pallet, the continuous design, and the bold graphic shapes.  I designed this quilt about 6 weeks ago.  I had an idea in my head that wouldn't go away, so one night I stayed up way too late getting this design down on paper.  The white shapes represent the glass ornaments that we decorate our Christmas tree with each year.  They especially remind me of vintage glass ornaments that covered Granny's tree every year. 


 This quilt is 60x70. This quilt uses the Quick Curve Ruler to cut the curved pieces and square up the blocks.  It is designed to be a holiday throw quilt that gives a great splash of color and festivity to any room.  I quilted it on my Gammill longarm with a medium density so it wouldn't be too stiff.  The pattern is available and can be purchased here.

 The silver dot is a Michael Miller print which sparkles and catches just the right amount of light to give it that magical Christmas feel.  The white has a light gray print and is from Moda's Blitzen collection.  The red is solid. 
Are you in the Holiday mood yet?  Christmas is two months minus one day away!!!!  I have one thing checked off my list this year - Deco the Halls!

Helen

Friday, October 19, 2012

Deco Flora - Newest QCR Pattern

I am excited to show off the newest QCR Pattern - DECO FLORA!

The inspiration for this quilt came from visiting the botanical garden on the mall in Washington DC.  It was on a hot day in June 2011 that we found ourselves wandering into this great escape from the heat.  The garden is luscious, beautiful, and serene.




Every spot was filled with interesting plants and design elements.  That is what I tried to recreate in this quilt design.





This pattern is great for using all those wonderful big print floral fabrics that are so easy to fall in love with.  I used a great Amy Butler purple dot for the background fabric.  The quilting highlights the floral fabrics with a modern feather and my favorite background back-and-forth filler. 

I designed this quilt to have that very chic bohemian feel which goes great with many interior design elements.  This pattern also has a bonus table runner!

It is available on paper and as a pdf pattern.  Don't forget to buy your QCR today for 20% of regular price.  You can buy it here.



Friday, October 12, 2012

Deco the Halls - Finished

I LOVE this design and color combination!  This is probably one of my favorite quilts I've ever made and quilted.  I love the  graphic design and simple color combination. The silver dot is a Michael Miller print that is available currently in stores.  The white and the gray binding is from Moda's 'Blitzen' collection.  The red is a solid from Moda.  This is a 60 x 70 lap quilt, so I didn't want the quilting to be too heavy or it makes for a stiff quilt about which my children complain.

This quilt was fun to piece and even more fun to quilt.  The Quick Curve Ruler makes cutting and piecing a quilt with many curves quick and easy.  The time commitment to sew curves is reduced by at least 1/3 by using the QCR.  

I have the pattern ready to go, but I need to get some time with my photographer, Breanne at Red Poppy Photo (btw she did an amazing job on my pattern cover photos :o)) to get the cover photo and full quilt picture taken. 

Helen






P. S. Here are two other color ways that I was debating about.  I think they are all great!





Thursday, October 11, 2012

'Deco the Halls' - 2012 Holiday Quilt

I love this design!  It is a common graphic design that is on a lot of fabric, wallpaper, wrapping paper, upholstery fabric, etc., but I decided to turn it into a quilt pattern.  I am very proud of myself for planning to use red/white/gray because red and I do not always get along (see here)

I have been working on this quilt for a couple of weeks.  After cutting and sewing the blocks I adjusted the quilt design twice to get just the right look.  Yesterday I was able to load it on my long-arm and begin quilting it.  The quilting has been a progression.  I knew right away what I wanted to do in the red, but the gray and white designs occurred one layer at a time, never quite sure what would come next until I finished each section of quilting.

Here are a series of pics showing this quilts evolution.






This quilt uses the Quick Curve Ruler, and the pattern will be available in about a week.  Jenny and I challenged each other to get our Holiday quilts done before we go to Houston, and her quilt is amazing, awesome, stupendous, etc!  See it here.

Helen


Monday, October 8, 2012

New QCR Pattern

DECO CONTRAILS

CONTRAILS???  What's that about?  Well it's the name of the exhaust from a jet airplane we see in the sky that looks like thin streaks of fluffy clouds, and it's also the name of my new pattern!

The inspiration for this quilt came from living in the Texas Panhandle.  You know, that little square part of Texas that juts upward by Colorado, New Mexico, and Oklahoma.  We lived there for three years until moving to  Arizona this past June.  The Texas Panhandle is the land of BIG skies, flat wide-open spaces, constant wind, and more cattle than you can imagine!  Those big skies were perfect for viewing 10 to 15 contrails at a time.  Airplanes going every which way with only a very few of them stopping in Amarillo.

This quilt is made using the Quick Curve Ruler, which easily cuts the curved shapes for no-pin piecing.  This has a modified "Trip Around the World" setting with HST blocks on the diagonal giving it the "Contrails" inspiration.  The blue fabric is from Momo and is adorable with birds walking or flying.  I was able to cut the fabric so they are all going the same direction.







Thank you so much to those that have already purchased my patterns.  Your kind support has exceeded my expectations!  You may have noticed my new pattern layout with the "Sew Kind of Wonderful" logo.  Jenny and I are merging our businesses, and we are thrilled to have two distributors that will be carrying our QCR Patterns and the Quick Curve Ruler.  

So, over the next few months HGMR Deco Quilting will be fazed out as my sister and I become one business "Sew Kind of Wonderful."  Our distributors indicated it was confusing to have two separate business names related to the QCR Patterns and Quick Curve Ruler.  Besides, Jenny and I have always planned on getting to this point, this just sped  up the transition.  We are super excited to be working together!

Helen

Wednesday, October 3, 2012

Sneak Peak at Deco Flora

 Background fill - LOVE IT!!

I love background fill on quilts.  It is the background that makes all the other specialty quilting pop out and get to show off.  My favorite background fill is just back and forth parallel (lol) lines.  I love the texture it gives when touching the quilt and the rest spots it gives your eyes when viewing a quilt. 

Here are two sneak peaks at Deco Flora with all that yummy background fill showing up!

 What is your favorite background fill?

Helen

Tuesday, October 2, 2012

Ribbon Candy

I loaded one of my own quilts and began the quilting process.  I decided to do some swirls and ribbon candy.  The quilt is very directional.  I can do ribbon candy when it is back and forth but not up and down, so I am taking this off and reloading it so I can finish the layers of ribbon candy.

Monday, October 1, 2012

And the winners are.......

Thank you to everyone for your kind words of support and comments about my quilt patterns.  It is very motivating to hear encouraging words.  There are more patterns in the works and they will be released as they are completed.

Using the random number generator we have 5 winners.

Jennie P said - Congrats on your store launch!! I really love the Deco Shimmer pattern!

Joye with an e said - You are a creative and talented designer. Wishing you much luck with your ventures. Thanks.
joyecox@yahoo.com

Cindy said - Nice job! I've been so wanting to try a quilt with Jenny's ruler.

Pam said - congrats!! i love love all your patterns! you and jenny compliment each others style so nicely. look out houston quilt market these girls are coming !!! xoxoxo

Caren D said - The patterns look great. I'm always looking for modern patterns to appeal to my adult, not so traditional children. Good luck with your new endeavor (and good luck to me in your give-away contest! )

The winners were 23, 89, 59, 9, 15

Thank you to everyone and to Jenny for giving away 2 Quick Curve Rulers!