More scrappy quilts

All photographs by Brent Kane for Martingale. Used by permission.

I began the day today by looking through this book for quilting inspiration: 12-Pack Quilts: Simple Quilts that Start with 12 Fat Quarters, by Barbara Groves and Mary Jacobson. Scrappy quilts have captured my imagination for the past few years, and the 12 fresh designs in this book make me glad I started on this journey.

Caught in the Middle, page 16.

Not all scrappy quilts work, though. Choosing fabrics for them can be confusing. Do all the tips about color, value, and minding contrast apply? After all, if it is scrappy I might be able to just pull fabric from my scrap stash and use it, right? Well… not so fast. Barbara and Mary begin their book with a Q and A session with Julie Karasek, who owns a successful quilt store in Elm Grove, Wisconsin, called Patched Works. Julie’s answers provide guidance on how to select fabrics so we can confidently create beautiful scrappy quilts.

Heart’s Desire, page 20.

Using Julie’s idea of selecting 12 fat quarters to make a scrappy project, Barbara and Mary designed delightful quilts featuring fat quarters from their stash which go together specially well, as well as fat quarters from fabric collections (I don’t know about you, but sometimes I fall in love with a fabric collection and those are the only fabrics I want to use. We can still make the project look scrappy, as shown in the book).

Although the blocks are fairly easy to put together, the instructions are very detailed down to how best to cut each fat quarter.

Bobbins, page 24.

The Village, page 46.

The quilts I’ve shown are my favorites. I can’t stop looking at “Bobbins” and “The Village”… I need to go to my studio and get going on my current projects so I can start these new ones!