One of the things we love about creating transparency quilts is the depth you see in the colors as well as the composition. Hello Sunshine appears to be a relatively straightforward baby quilt but in one place the overlapping colors make sense – a light over a darker fabric yields a shade in between. However, look at the light centers. We’ve played with the visuals to have two medium tones overlap two darker tones and the result is a yellow that is lighter than either of the other colors used.

This example shows how the transparencies don’t always have to be logical in terms of the overlap color being the shade that would result if you really did overlay the colors with, for example, an overhead projector. What matters most is that the gradations between the different overlays aren’t too much of a leap.

I think the most useful section of the book is “What Works, What Doesn’t and Why.” We intentionally put together a series of UNsuccessful transparencies so you could see what went wrong. Let me know if you want to see any more of them and I can add them to future posts.

By the way, we were happy to read that Library Journal has included Transparency Quilts as a “not-to-be missed” title for quilting along with our second book “Modern Quilt Workshop.” Thanks for the shout out Library Journal!

I have this interesting relationship with Kathreen Ricketson. She’s been kind of like a modern-day pen pal to me for the past six or seven years, even though we’ve never met. Kathreen, the founder of the popular craft blog Whipup.net lives in Australia. Before starting this blog I wrote for Whipup for about a year and a half. I became a huge fan of Kathreen’s and admire both her eye and her heart. I look forward to meeting Kathreen in person one of these days but in the meantime, I get to enjoy another of her charming books.

On this stop of the Little Bits Quilting Bee Blog Tour I sent Kathreen a series of questions about the book and about her life as a Craft Queen. Below are her answers. Enjoy!

1. How did you go about designing the quilts in the book? Describe your creative process.

I begin by forming a theme – in this case it was using pre-cut fabrics, and my love of bright colours – tradition and contemporary mixed together. I start by researching concepts, looking through books and magazines – including books like traditional shibori, Latvian embroidery, Indian architecture and Mid-century fabric design mixed with magazines on topics ranging from Indie music and designer interiors to vintage quilt pattern and sewing magazines. It’s all fodder for my inspiration. At the same time I am sketching up designs, taking note of colour combinations, contrasts, patterns and shapes.

Once I have my sketches, I choose fabrics – collecting fabric swatches from all over, both digital and real, I add them to my physical sketch book and to my digital sketch book too. I then design up the ideas in a quilt software program, which helps with calculating sizes. This is the most difficult part as the blocks in these quilts had to be sized for use with pre-cut fabric pieces, to allow as little wastage as possible. So there was a lot of back and forth on designing blocks, sewing up test blocks, and back again to get the right size block and quilt for the fabric that was to be used.

Once the quilt pattern was finalised and tested by me, I then had a quilt making friend and neighbour give them the once over as well, after discussion about what techniques would be used and how to efficiently cut the pattern pieces, I once again went back to the original quilt patterns and made more changes. At this point I wanted to be certain I had a good mix of easy, medium and difficult quilts, that I had some quilts with curves, some with improv sewing, some applique as well as some whole quilt designs. So again the patterns were tweaked, some tossed out and a couple of new ones added in until I was happy with the final group.

2. What was the hardest part of writing the book? The most interesting? The most fun?

Physically the hardest part was the sewing of the quilt tops, 20 quilts in 5 months – luckily I farmed out five quilt tops to some quilty friends, the other 15 I made myself and at the end of those months my back was aching and I had devised a method of sewing standing up. Mentally the hardest part for me is the math involved while designing the patterns.

The most interesting part – well I found the whole process interesting – taking my art and design and sewing skills to a new level was incredibly fun and satisfying. Learning a new computer program was interesting, but the most fun part was learning how to use my new quilting machine. All the quilts in the book (except for the hand quilted one) were quilted by me. I loved practicing my new-found free-form quilting skills, and the quilting is an essential part of their design.

3. What’s next for you?

When this is posted up I will be just back from my month long holiday and so am hoping to be refreshed and getting stuck straight into a whole bunch of new projects. Hopefully a new book will part of that – but definitely I am doing more with my Action Pack magazine for kids, designing new quilts and taking on new challenges too.

4. Describe an average day. Do you write everyday? Research for whipup? Work on Action Pack?

I get up early to answer emails, because I am in Australia I like to make sure to be online when the rest of the world is too – at least for an hour in the morning before breakfast – this is when I can answer questions or reply to emails. Then we have breakfast as a family, we always have a hot cooked breakfast – bacon, eggs and tea is our usual, the kids are usually so busy at school they don’t like to have a huge lunch – mostly fruit, homemade muffin or cake and maybe a bagel, so I like to send them off for the day with a hearty breakfast. After getting the kids packed off to school, I sometimes meet a friend for coffee and an hour of knitting or crochet, or else I go for a bike ride or do some groceries, then I head home and do an hour of housework, before working on whipup, Action Pack, or my current book project – whichever is the most urgent. I meet the kids after school and we have afternoon tea together and chat about the day, then I begin dinner, we might bake together or work on some craft projects or go to the park. Then its dinner time, we read a chapter of our family novel and the kids then go to bed and read their books for a while before lights out. Finally my husband Rob and I get a chance to sit down together – we might have a glass of wine or a cup of tea and discuss our day, our current project or our latest scheme or dream. And thats the day… It’s a mix of mothering, housework, writing, paper work, organisation, baking, craft, and I make sure to squeeze in some time for myself and for my husband.

5. You have a weekend all to yourself. You can have any supplies you need. What would you make?

I have so many projects on the go, a couple of crochet blankets, about five half finished quilts, a pile of fabric waiting to be turned into cushions, an upholstered headboard project that exists only on paper, a big pile of thrift-store clothes waiting to be turned into something plus a shelf full of delicious wool felt – all of these things are constantly calling to me. But give me a whole weekend to myself I might just take a bath and grab a book or hunker down with a hot chocolate and my crochet!

Chronicle, the publisher of Little Bits Quilting Bee, is offering to send a free copy  to a US resident. If you’re interested in having your name in the drawing, please leave a comment. Do you use pre-cuts? Are you a longtime Whipup reader? Chime in.

Below are the remaining stops on the blog tour so even if your name isn’t chosen for the book here, keep trying because there are lots more stops.

Monday, November 7 – The Long Thread
Tuesday, November 8 – Craft Nectar & Comfort Stitching
Wednesday, November 9 – luvinthemommyhood & Elsie Marley
Thursday, November 10 – True Up
Friday, November 11 – House on Hill Road & CraftyPod

Monday, November 14 – Handmade by Alissa & Hello My Name Is Heather
Tuesday, November 15 – West Coast Crafty & Foxy Art Studio
Wednesday, November 16 – Patch Andi & The Last Piece
Thursday, November 17 – In Color Order & Duo Fiberworks
Friday, November 18 – Kristin La Flamme & Camp Follower Bags & Quilts

Monday, November 21 – Quilt Dad
Tuesday, November 22 – Pat Sloan & Pleasant Home

This is kind of how it started. Bill and I have been dreaming for years about starting a magazine for modern quilters. There were always other things on our plates so it got pushed to the side. Finally this summer we decided to make it our top priority.

Like Judy Garland in “Babes in Arms,” we dreamed about how to make it captivating for you the reader. We wanted it to be a totally different reading experience. Most importantly, we wanted it to inspire you and make the process of quiltmaking easier and more fun.

Being visual people we thought about and discussed in great depth the mental process of reading a pattern and then trying to visualize the construction being described with words. What if we threw all of the standard formats for pattern writing out the window and developed a graphic approach unique to each pattern? What if you could look at a glance and see how many steps and how many blocks/pieces/units you needed to assemble the whole quilt? There would be no advertising in this magazine so rather than have to flip from page to page with ads in between, you could have one glorious spread after another. It didn’t need to be a huge magazine, we reasoned, but it had to be on nice quality paper so it would feel special. In 2012, we will offer digital downloads of each issue but for now, it will be in print.

And like Judy in “Babes in Arms,” we wanted it to sparkle. Pretty styled photography for each project, multiple color variations, fun graphics, lots of tips, three larger projects and one small one per issue. There’s a Palette Chasing column in each issue in which we feature a palette with specific fabric names and style numbers inspired by a beautiful destination.

Every fabric shown in each project is listed by manufacturer and style number so you can assemble your own kit if you want. We’ll also have a limited number of kits as well of every project in each issue. There will be projects with hand work and machine stitching in a variety of techniques. Still Life with Pears, a project in our first issue is a combination of hand and machine techniques, but we explain how you can adapt it to exclusively machine stitching if you prefer that. All patterns have been designed by us and tested by us.  Our first issue is 20 pages (18 + cover). Our guess is that future issues will be about that length as well.

Modern Quilts Illustrated will be published three times a year and the issues will be numbered not dated because a good project is just as good in April as it was in January. We will be printing in small runs with a fast turnaround time. So if a great new fabric line comes out in February, we can review it in the issue that comes out in March. Jim White, who did the photography in both Quilts Made Modern and Transparency Quilts did the styled shot photography for the first issue and we hope will continue to work with us on future issues.

I head to Houston to Quilt Market on October 27 to promote Modern Quilts Illustrated to quilt shop owners who might be interested in carrying it in their shops. Although we will be selling it through our website, we hope that shop owners will also carry individual issues as well. If you want your local shop to carry Modern Quilts Illustrated, let them know because it’s unlikely that our little indie publication will find its way onto a shelf at your local newsstand.

Each issue will retail for $14. If you would like to purchase it from us directly, you can either come to our launch party on December 4 (more details to follow) or you can give us a call and we’ll mail you a copy for $15 (which includes postage). If you would like a subscription for three issues for $30 (+ tax for subscribers in Illinois), please call us at (708) 445-1817 and we’ll get an account set up for you. Our first issue will ship the week of November 3. Issue #2 will ship in late March 2012 and #3 will be printed in July 2012.

This is a huge new adventure for us. We have worked nights and weekends for months to refine our vision and figure out the logistics of making this happen. We’d love your feedback and thoughts. We’re so proud of what we’ve put together and hope that it delights you.

One of my favorite ways to think about fabric design and fabric combinations in a new way is to consider individual designers or a single print as a guest at a dinner party. To make things interesting I’ll think about designers whose styles are completely different. Then I think about what other “guests” you would need at the party to keep the conversation going. The question “what if…” has resulted in many of our favorite quilts.

In the next three months you’ll see two quilts designed and made by us that use highly unusual combinations. Part of our motivation in wanting to put together these unusual combinations was to demonstrate to others the flexibility of some prints. Regularly at workshops we teach I will hear participants quickly identify themselves by the designers whose fabrics they use most frequently. It even happens within fabric companies. When we designed fabric for RJR they were puzzled that modern quilters would use Thimbleberries fabrics. Sometimes people will look at our quilts at lectures and then mumble to themselves with surprise, “Hmm. Those are just plain old tone-on-tones aren’t they?” In this same group are sometimes the Jo Morton fans who love Civil War reproduction prints.

On the opposite end of the room are the Kaffe-Amy aficionados. These folks love the big prints and bright colors and can’t imagine using the desaturated colors found in traditional fabrics.

So here was the self-imposed challenge: figure out how to use fabrics from both ends of the design spectrum for the ultimate scrappy quilt. So this is the palette of the quilt you’ll see in American Patchwork & Quilting’s February 2012 issue, on newsstands at the beginning of December.

The quilt features 36 fabrics from Amy Butler to Jo Malone and from Kaffe Fassett to Thimbleberries and everything in between. We can all just get along or at least our fabrics can.

We loved this idea so much that we decided to try it with a lighter palette with a sage green field and tan highlights. Here are the kits being cut for the release of this quilt later in the month.

The kits are a total pain to cut because some have 26 different fabrics in them so it’s a heck of a lot of cutting but it is an unusual collection of fabrics so I’m guessing that we’ll have calls requesting them.

Next I want to do a darker version and see how the colors play out. I’ll probably try a brighter version as well. For those of us who love pattern it’s amazing that the effect can be so soft given the number of prints competing for your attention. Sometimes the more prints in the quilt the less attention any one of them gets so the whole effect is calmer. Just the opposite of what you’d expect. I’m not sure but I think there’s some kind of Zen lesson in that. Hmm…

The lovely ladies at the Flying Needle Quilt Guild in Calgary hosted Bill for a workshop in May. At the end of the workshop they generously gave him camp towels with each of our names embroidered on them along with a maple leaf so we would remember our Canadian friends.

We were so thrilled to receive these gifts because we love to camp and are generally outdoorsy types. If you’re not a camper, these microfiber towels are great for travel as they dry in a flash and are extremely compact to pack. Having them personalized with machine embroidery eliminates the “Which towel is mine?” problem as well. We don’t have machines with embroidery functions but it’s got me thinking about the idea of hand embroidering (or embroidering with a simple satin stitch in my machine) things that you wouldn’t think to personalize such as umbrellas, sleeping bag stuff sacks, and gear bags. Even a single-letter monogram might help me find my black umbrella in the sea of black umbrellas on a coat rack. Thanks Flying Needle!

First of all, many thanks for our hosts along the way. We’re grateful for your support and inspired by your kind words. Please feel free to call on us as we’d be delighted to return the favor.

Bill and I were talking tonight about what we want readers to take away from our book beyond just the words and images in it. And then Alton Brown and his Sweet Potato Waffle recipe came to mind. About two years ago I had some sweet potatoes that needed to be eaten quickly. I was planning dinner and decided to switch it up and see if we could add sweet potatoes to a waffle recipe to boost the nutritional content and fiber in the waffles. I found a recipe by Alton Brown who, as usual, was a culinary step ahead of me.

He had figured out the perfect Sweet Potato waffle recipe and it sounded great. But then I thought, “What if I substituted some buckwheat flour for regular flour?” I did so and Sophie ate the first one and said, “Are these Gingerbread Waffles? If they are, you should add some ginger. That would be good.” So I did. The resulting Buckwheat Sweet Potato waffles (that really taste like gingerbread waffles) have become a family favorite. I would never have had the energy to figure out the basics and that’s why I love Alton Brown’s recipes. They are my jumping-off point.

We want you, our treasured readers, to feel the same about our patterns and books. Our hope is that you see the Double-Dutch quilt and you think, “How perfect for my collection of Liberty prints!” Will the Loft quilt help you to see how cool and modern those tone-on-tone fabrics can be? We hope so. Take our patterns, daydream a bit and make them your own.

On a regular basis people send us photos of quilts that they’ve made from our patterns that look so different from the original while others order kits from us and love getting the exact fabrics without all of the running around. Regardless of what kind of quilter you are, please let us hear from you. Visit our Facebook page, send us the occasional email (weeks@funquilts.com) and, of course, leave your comments here. Let us know what inspires you and how we can help you on your quiltmaking journey.

Now onto the prize extravaganza!

THE PRIZES

We will award the following prizes to be drawn randomly from among those who leave comments below. All you have to do to enter is to tell us which part of the blog tour you enjoyed the most.

2 people will get a Beach Glass sticky memo cube

3 people will receive a FunQuilts pattern

1 person will win a Beach Glass napping quilt kit

2 people will get a 30-minute Skype session with Bill and me (at a mutually convenient time) to answer questions about design, demonstrate quiltmaking techniques, or give you advice on how to finish that quilt that’s not quite right in your mind. On a regular basis people ask us about the business part of it too (there’s a post coming on that as well) but if that’s you also, we’d be happy to advise on that as well.

And, of course, one person will receive a copy of Quilts Made Modern, if you don’t already have one. Or perhaps you’re like the enthusiastic lady I met once who bought two of each of our books because she wanted a separate copy to keep at her weekend place. Love it!

OK now here’s the big surprise – we’re going to add one more 30-minute Skype session FOR A LUCKY GUILD. If your guild has the capacity to project us onto a screen using Skype where we can take questions from lots of different people, let us know and you’ll be part of a special drawing that gets us to your guild for free! We love guilds and they have been very good to us. But we can’t be everywhere. So tell us about your guild in the comment section and what you loved about the tour. Even if we’ve taught at your guild before, that’s A-OK! Should be lots of fun. We could Skype before, during or after your regular meeting and this offer is good for a year.

So comment away. We’ll take comments until midnight (CDT) Monday August 1 and announce the lucky winners on Tuesday August 2!

I get questions. Lots of them. I thought I’d answer a few together in one post. So here we go…

Q: How do you decide on quilting threads and quilting patterns?

A: If we’re machine quilting, which is what we do 95% of the time, we ask ourselves the following questions:

1. What is the role of the quilting in this quilt? Is it to add another design layer to it? In which case it should contrast with the piecing in some way. Or should the quilting disappear and be secondary to the piecing? If that is the case, then you want an all-over pattern that doesn’t call as much attention to itself.

2. Is the piecing directional? Are there long thin strips or elongated shapes? If so, we look for a quilting pattern that works with the directionality of the piece.

3. Are the fabrics solids or busy prints? If you are using solids, you can switch threads and change patterns without it becoming too busy. If you’re using 36 very busy prints, don’t waste your time. The prints will dominate and the busyness of the quilting with just be an unwelcome distraction.

4. As for colors, unless we’re doing contrasting stitching, we look at the lightest and darkest value in the fabrics on the front and go for a value that’s halfway between the two and is neutral or close to the dominant color in the quilt.

The same reader said that she was stuck in the stipple and loopy rut. The solution is to put some muslin or cheap solid fabric on your long-arm or by making a small quilted “sandwich” for your regular machine. Then you put some dark thread on the machine and you doodle. Don’t experiment on a finished quilt. Practice and experiment. Hold onto those experiments to remind yourself of patterns you’ve developed. Also, we show in our books Quilts Made Modern and Modern Quilt Workshop the quilting patterns that we’ve developed. Practice a few and see if you can manage them.

Q: Will you show a detail of the fabrics in Fashion District so we can see the colors more closely?

A: Here you go:

Q: Where can I take a class with you? Do I have to crash someone else’s guild?

A: Believe me. This has been very challenging for us too. We used to teach very popular week-long and 3-day workshops near our studio at the university where Bill teaches. The spaces we used to use became unavailable during a period of construction. We tried another university and the space was unacceptable to us as well as the students. The big issue is that we are a for-profit company so we cannot rent retreat centers and other low-cost venues who only rent to not-for-profits. We think that we will be able to have classes in the Chicago area by next year, but we can’t commit to it at this point.

Periodically husbands email or call us and tell us that they’d like to give their wives a class with us near them. They suggest that we find a place in their town and put together a class and presumably fly myself to the other side of the country. If it were only so simple. We go where we’re invited because I can’t organize a class 1,500 miles away from our studio and assume that it will fill. Even if you’re not part of a guild but can get 10 quilting friends together, if I’m available and you have a venue, I’ll see if we can make it work. We don’t make a living teaching as many quilters do for a variety of reasons including that we have a 10-year-old daughter, have commitments in our community and have commissions and projects booked months ahead. We also think that we’re better and fresher as teachers when we don’t do it 30 weekends a year, which is what many people do.

Q: Will there be a blog tour for Quilts Made Modern?

A: So glad you asked! It starts on July 25 and I’ll post all about it later in the week. There will be some unusual prizes including two 1/2 hr private Skype sessions with us for anyone who wants design or technical help on a quilt in progress. Should be a ton of fun.

Q: Are you working on another book?

A: Our next book, Transparency Quilts,  should be out by December. I will write more about it when I do the blog tour for Quilts Made Modern at the end of the month but we’re very excited about it. I’ll start revealing the projects in the book, week by week beginning in November.

Keep those questions coming!

Long-time readers of this blog know that I had to wait a long time to become a mom. I think a lot about how to introduce our daughter to as many wonderful experiences as I can while she’s young. I’ve got this narrow window of childhood during which to get her interested and excited about things to learn and make and do so were you to come to our house, you’d see lots of parent-child projects in various stages of completion.

You can tell from the first pages of Whipup.net’s Action Pack eMag that Kathreen Ricketson must feel the same way. Issue 4 [June and July 2011] is the Great Outdoors Big Bumper Issue. This issue is the perfect idea book for every parent who has a school-aged child at home on summer vacation. There’s no advertising, just 60 pages of great ideas, clear instructions and charming images. The photography and design of Action Pack are so beautiful that we’re going to actually print out the issue to keep with us on for future road trips and camping. The activities in Action Pack remind kids and parents alike that you don’t need a lot of expensive electronics to have fun and learn a thing or two. Oh, and by the way, there’s a big, beautiful world out there waiting for you as soon as you are done playing Angry Birds.

Kathreen shows readers how they can explore the world in a very holistic way. It’s not just fun craft ideas, she’s included activities for the brain as well as the senses. There are directions for making a homemade anemometer to measure the speed of wind, great instructions for learning to tie useful knots or make a fishing pole, some fun family card games, suggestions on how to make ephemeral sculptures and recipes to try around a campfire. As a parent, this is a really motivating issue because it reminds me that summer, like childhood, is fleeting and that no one should ever spend a moment of it bored.

World’s greatest acquisitions editor Suzanne Woods from C&T has curated a collection of 99 modern blocks that will be published this October! We have five blocks in the book, which we’ll be discussing more as the publication dates draws closer. That blue one (the third from the top on the left) is one of ours as well.

As I’ve written before, designing blocks without the context of a layout is challenging to us but we’re hoping that readers will be able to make the leap that a simple block can look really dynamic in certain layouts. Later in the fall we’ll offer a few layouts that will help you see some of the possibilities.

I think that this book, however, is going to be HUGE! I’ve never seen a collection of modern blocks this extensive so I think this is going to become a classic. Can’t wait!

In the category of “better late than never,” we dyed our Easter eggs this morning. Every year we try different techniques, some successful, some not. Today I had a contract to get out, some pansies screaming to be put in pots, lettuce and spinach seeds to sow (another entry in the “better late…” journal), two loads of laundry on deck and a grocery store run on my mind. I decided not to be goal-oriented and just go for some pretty solid colors. Nothing fancy. We divided the eggs up among the three of us and dipped and rolled for a bit. We ended up with some pretty colors and then I headed out to my gardening chores. When I came back in the house, I looked at the eggs and remembered how I love the combination of  fine line drawings and watercolors. There is always a fine-line, retractable Sharpie within reach in our home and studio. Should you ever need the perfect book-inscribing pen, that’s the one you want.

“If I sat down and doodled on these eggs instead of doing laundry and working on the contract, would that be considered procrastination (bad) or doing something creative (good)?” thought I. “If I posted it on Craft Nectar, that would count as productive,” I reasoned to myself. The conversation in my head continued, “Is this worth posting? Does anyone care that I scribbled on my Easter eggs? But if I shared it maybe other people would enjoy scribbling on their Easter eggs. Maybe it could be an after-Easter-brunch sort of fun family activity for someone, scribbling on Easter eggs.” By this point I needed a second opinion. “Bill, is this interesting?” I said as I held out my Mendhi-inspired egg. “Very. I want to do one too.” Some people play Farmville or watch golf. We sit around putting graffiti on our Easter eggs. And this is why it’s 11pm and I’m just finishing up that laundry.

Happy Easter, Passover, Spring everyone.