Hello! A new book and a giveaway...if you make it that far!
Today I am introducing you to a new book by C & T Publishing...Love Flying Geese. The book is a culmination of 27 Flying Geese projects as previously featured in Love Patchwork & Quilting and now all in one place!
I am lucky enough to have four projects in this book and it is great to see them along with all the other wonderful projects showing how different quilts with the same theme can be.
My projects were all done over a few years so vary according to what spoke to me at the time.
I'm often asked about my design process and that's not a simple question to answer but I thought I would try and explain a little about how I work.
I work in several different ways. My starting point is sometimes the fabric I am working with but other times I have a design in mind and look for the fabric that completes the whole story.
Take these four quilts for example...let's go clockwise from top left...
Fancy Flora p.25
I paired Outback Wife by Gertrude Made with some low volumes of my Blueberry Park 2 collection, wanting the low volume background to allow the big blooms of Outback Wife to really pop. By grouping the same fabric together over several blocks meant there was even more pop and at the same time became restful...an area where the same was going on so not too much darting around for the eye. As far as the quilt design for this fabric was concerned, I wanted to produce something where it looked like the flowers were peaking through, hence the triangular design.
Sun Baked p.20
Euclid by Carolyn Friedlander is such a calm collection with each of the fabrics working so well with each other in a very soothing way. To me this collection was calling out for lots of variety but in a uniformed way, hence the row design. I kept the background fabric of all the rows the same which brings the whole quilt together . I threw in some of my screen printed fabrics to add some variety to the collection, printing on coordinating linens to Euclid.
Colour Study 2 p.31
For this quilt the design came first. The brief for this quilt from Love Patchwork & Quilting was to look at fabrics in the green/yellow colour range on a dark background. Since the brief was to show the colours I felt the design needed to have big blocks of the colours and to keep the design relatively simple. I went through my stash to pull fabrics within this colour story and played around with the layout until it felt cohesive. Even though there are a lot of different fabrics from a lot of different designers I love how calm the quilt is.
Colour Study 1 p.15
April Rhodes' Observer collection screamed out to me when I saw it and just knew as soon as I did what I was going to do with it. Each fabric design is relatively simple with each one being monochrome, so whilst there is a lot going on with each separate print they all work together so well so I knew I wanted to throw them all in a pot and randomly scatter them. I designed large and small Flying Geese, rotating some to produce some rows of diamonds to mix things up a bit. Like the Sun Baked quilt I screen printed some fabrics to go with Observer, printing on coordinating Art Gallery Pure Elements solids.
All these quilts, along with the other 23 in Love Flying Geese are all so different despite having the same quilt block element in them. I love how a block can look so different, by changing the fabrics and quilt designs and done by different designers! I think my favourite project in the book has to be Nicole Calver's Colour Twist (p.60) and yes this is a Flying Geese block, but what a clever twist on it...it's making me want to stop everything and make one!
C & T Publishing are kindly giving away an ebook copy of Love Flying Geese. If you would like to enter please leave a comment here and I will draw a winner on Monday April 1st...and no it won't be an April Fool's Day announcement!
Follow the rest of the Book Tour and see more about the book and the designers by clicking on the links below.
Tuesday 3/26: C&T Publishing at ctpub.com/blog
Wednesday 3/27: Karen Lewis at karenlewistextiles.blogspot.com
Thursday 3/28: Nicole Calver at snipssnippets.ca
Friday 3/29: Amanda Castor at materialgirlquilts.com
Sunday 3/31: Jenn Nevitt at mommysew.com
Monday 4/1: Moira de Carvalho at quiltdesignduo.com
Tuesday 4/2: Peta Peace at shequiltsalot.com
Wednesday 4/3: Julie Rutter at blackisleyarns.co.uk
Thursday 4/4: Jeni Baker at incolororder.com
Friday 4/5: Minki Kim at minkikim.com
