Modern Love Quilt

Introducing Modern Love which I designed for the Modern Quilt Guild ‘Quilt of the Month’ feature.

I’ve had this quilt in mind since I made my Conkers Quilt 18 months ago and I finalised the design back in March last year.  It has been hard keeping it as a secret all this time!

My Conkers Quilt, below, is a version of the Pickle Dish pattern but using New York Beauty quarters and HSTs rather than the traditional ‘lemon’ shaped centre.  As I was making that quilt I realised how fun it would be to make a Double Wedding Ring version using the same method.

I used EQ7 to help me design both quilts and was planning on making the full version like this…

But after attending a lecture on minimalism by Season Evans and a workshop on EQ7 with Christa Watson, both at QuiltCon last year, I decided to have a play around with the layout and started erasing some of the blocks like this…

It was at this point that I involved my two quilt buddies Lynne Goldsworthy and Karen Lewis. We often seek each others opinion and feedback on new designs which is so helpful when you are working away on your own.

It was Lynne who suggested removing the middle blocks in the layout (thanks Lynne!). And with a little more twiddling about, and suggestions from Karen to make it less regular (thanks Karen!), I decided on the final layout. Great team work ladies!  One of the hardest things about having so many options is knowing when to stop as I think so many of the options I came up with would have made really interesting quilts.

As I was feeling very positive about this design I submitted it to the MQG for their Quilt of the Month programme.  And it was accepted! If you are a member you can get the pattern for free here. If you are not a member then you should join!

I started making the quilt in November and chose lots of lovely Kona shades.

Originally I was going to use a light background but then the new Kona colours came out and I totally fell in love with Doeskin.  I’m so pleased I decided to use it as it’s given the whole design extra impact.

I always knew that I wanted my friend (and long arm quilter) Tatyana to quilt this.  With all that negative space I knew it needed something a bit special and Tatyana is the only other person I would trust with my quilts.

She was going to custom quilt it but then she found the most perfect template for the job!

It’s such a cool pattern and I think looks more modern than custom quilting (not that I really approve of these sort of narrow definitions, but as it was for the MQG…) and we both agreed on that lustrious turquoise thread.

I am so please I can finally share this quilt! I am thinking it might be my entry in the modern quilt category at FOQ (unless I make something new). Plus it will hang at QuiltCon Nashville in 2019 (nice to know I have an automatic entry for next year!!).