I introduced my latest pattern, Ripple & Rise, earlier this week — and psst, it’s still on sale through tomorrow! — but I’m back today to share a bit more about this specific quilt and the process of making it.
This design began after seeing a pattern on pair of leggings that played with triangles, squares, and areas of negative space. I don’t have a photo of the leggings, but I came home that day a few years ago and started playing around with similar ideas. I liked the movement of the flying geese blocks, and they way they seemed to come and go. Here are some of my design iterations:
I do 99% of my quilt designing in Illustrator, and I rarely delete anything — I just add new layers as I play around with different colors and try different tweaks. This makes it easy and fun to go back and see some of the variations that led to this final quilt design:
I was motivated to make this quilt a reality after meeting Stephanie Organes at QuiltCon in February. We knew each other a bit through Instagram, and I was thrilled to hear about her first fabric line with Andover. The bundle you see below is her Wandering collection, and it’s full of gorgeous florals in pinks, purples, oranges, and greens.
Once I mocked up my flying geese design in this collection, I knew it would be a great fit and got to work. I was on a bit of a tight deadline to get the quilt finished for Andover’s booth at the recent h+h americas tradeshow, but fortunately the pattern comes together quickly thanks to 4-at-a-time flying geese and the ability to chain piece blocks.
I also employed a new-to-me tip via Julie Cefalu that is great for the 4-at-a-time method! To reduce the bulk in the “nose” or “point” of each flying geese block, you can trim the corners of the first two squares as shown above. It didn’t take much time to snip the corners of those squares, and I loved the less bulky result!
I finished the top about a week and a half before we left for Europe. I knew all along that I wouldn’t have time to quilt it, so I reached out to Jenn Saxena, a great longarm quilter and fellow member of the Houston Modern Quilt Guild. She was able to take the top, quilt it for me, and have it back in my hands the day before we left for Europe!
Side note — I’ve been quilting for 12+ years now, and this is the first time I have EVER sent a top to someone else to quilt! That feels like some kind of milestone, right? But the process was flawless, Jenn did an awesome job, and this definitely will not be the last time I ask for help. (I’ve got at least 9-10 finished tops in my “to be quilted” queue and I’m thinking of asking Jenn to help me make some headway there…)
I told Jenn I wanted something floral or curvy to echo the florals in the fabric, and wanted to avoid anything too hard or geometric as I felt like the piecing was angular enough. Jenn suggested a few different options and I picked this double loop/swirl pantograph. We went back and forth a couple times on scale, and settled on a larger scale for a looser feel. I love the result…
…and the girls apparently loved it too. Ha!
When we got back from our Europe trip, this quilt was waiting for me and I was able to finish the binding and ship it off to Chicago where it spent a few days in Andover’s booth. It’s now on its way back to me and I will hopefully find a loving home for this one soon!
To make your own version, grab a copy of the Ripple & Rise pattern in my shop!
The stats:
- Quilt measures 50″ x 62″.
- Fabrics are from the Wandering collection by Stephanie Organes for Andover Fabrics. Backing is Andover’s Century Solids in Orchid.
- Batting is Hobbs Heirloom Premium 80/20 cotton/poly.
- Pieced with Aurifil 50 wt thread in #2600 (dove gray).
- Longarm quilted by Jenn Saxena.
