Pages from the Make It Simpler Notebook

Houston, we had tone

2012-02-19T02:03:00.001-05:00

February 18, 2012
Re-purposing for Anita's Arrowhead

Jan Krentz and I enjoyed a few Saturday night parties at the last Quilt Market. I returned home to New York with a souvenir gift from the Robert Kaufman party: a generously sized piece of Jennifer Sampou's "Fiesta" which had served its calling as table topper.

I got around to laundering it today. The food stains came out, I undid the hem and rough cut a nine inch square from the topper, left, to make an Anita's Arrowhead block

Another memento from Market: Jackie Kunkel's podcast that Jan and I recorded in the morning following the the parties. Details, photos and links are here

This weekend I'm making a quilt with these Houston souvenirs from Dear Stella. According to Longfellow, "All things come round to him who will but wait." The wait is over, my quilt is due next week. Work. Play. Work. Smile.

About Face

2012-01-02T14:14:00.003-05:00

Interfacing that is

January 2, 2012

I intend to spend this month working with directional fabric, much of which sits sorted on every chair in the apartment.

Before pushing away from my computer I want to alert you to my dedicated Interfacing page. For the time being it features my complimentary Unbiased Block pattern. The happy occasion being... ta dah...
my newest product from C&T Publishing. This video explains its uses:

Make It Simpler Fusible Interfacing

Federal holidays, today being one, are meant for sewing so I'm off to more of these stripes

100 Blocks, vol 4

2011-11-10T00:21:00.028-05:00

November 15th
Karen in Breezy Point (Aztel2000) won the collector's issue. I appreciated everyone's comments -Anita

November 10, 2011

Jester

#356, p 45, pattern sheet 4

Star light, star bright, the first star I see tonight...

Anita's Design Door. My sliding closet doors are metal so I "pin" blocks to it using magnets

I have been obsessed with this block for ages. Now that it's seeing the light of day in Quiltmaker's 100 Blocks, and since I will not be teaching this December, I intend to make more blocks next month. Or at least cut the fabric for them. IF I can find my project box. Jodie Davis and Mark Lipinski of the Quilt Out Loud show visited my studio last August. To make room for their video crew I stashed my stash and works in progress. Thank goodness I had the foresight to bring some fabric home from Houston:

You might make cutting templates for the background. Make 3 photocopies of the foundation pattern (p 45) and add ¼" seam allowances beyond the sewing lines of each patch. I "laminate" each patch with wide transparent shipping tape before cutting it away from the photocopy.

Over five years ago my friend Susan pieced 8" blocks. Yesterday when she saw I'd set them as the digital quilt below she smiled slyly and said she'd be sewing them together.

Susan's fabric serves her well.

If you are having difficulty with the "comments" feature, accessing this post rather than the entire blog may be a solution. Quiltmaker will send a copy of 100 Blocks to a random commenter. I am glad for your thoughts and ideas. My gift to everyone is my NEW pattern, Anita's Unbiased Bock. Refer to the sidebar, on the right column, for a link to my PDF. It's about a technique that calls for Interfacing.

Previously, in Quiltmaker's Quilty Pleasures, an interview with Anita

Quiltmaker Magazine teaser

2011-11-09T08:22:00.004-05:00

November 9, 2011

My Jester Block

While attending Quilt Market in Houston I got my hands on

Quiltmaker's 100 Blocks from today's top designers, vol. 4

Anita's Unbiased Block

2011-11-04T08:42:00.002-04:00

Houston, November 4, 2011

The Candy Striper

I'm pleased to share Anita's Unbiased Block which I demonstrated yesterday at Quilt Festival. At the moment it's dawn in Houston and I'm on my merry way to teach my signature Old Italian Block method in the convention center. Now all of us will have something new to work on.

Anita's Arrowhead pattern

2011-09-03T16:58:00.004-04:00

For a limited time, Quiltmaker Magazine has posted their PDF version of Anita's Arrowhead. The link is within their Quilty Pleasures post. There is no charge for the pattern. But you could order a subscription...

One step at a time

2011-08-20T20:27:00.002-04:00

The No-Waste Windmill technique is part of The Quilt Show, episode #905, posting August 29, 2011

Sign up and see

2011-08-14T21:34:00.015-04:00

The Quilt Show with Alex Anderson, Ricky Tims and Me

For a few days in September, 2011, watch this episode, #905, at no charge courtesy of The Quilt Show. I published a special access code to it in my newsletter. My Quilt Show newsletter was sent on Labor Day. Links to it and my archived newsletters are in the upper sidebar. The Quilt Show code is valid only through Sunday, September 11. In the meantime, here is a thirty second peek.

NEW The Super-Sized Square on Point Quilt

2011-08-13T19:34:00.009-04:00

"Two squares, two quilts, too easy!"

Quilts by Carolyn Beam

Are you familiar with my CuttingLines™ baby quilt, The Super-Sized Nine Patch? Countless community quilts have been made from that pattern. My newest quick baby quilt, the Super-Sized Square-on-Point is similarly made.This new pattern appears exclusively in the September/October 2011 issue of Quiltmaker Magazine

Photo courtesy International Quilt Festival, Long Beach, CA

It took me less than a minute to explain my method two weeks ago at the Long Beach Quilt Festival Theater. Coincidentally, that's how long it takes to make one cut to yield one center square and four triangles.

...with a little help from my friends

2011-07-19T17:09:00.002-04:00

Two months ago I taught the Two-Color Pineapple block at The City Quilter shop here in Manhattan. A new-to-me student in the workshop, Nicole, blogged about the class. I like her perspective on quiltmaking.

One of her images was of my trimmed and untrimmed pineapple blocks-in-progress. They were made to illustrate every step in the book. For a book, each stage is created individually, unlike a blog where one can continuously photograph one block in progress.

Now, thanks to an idea from my girlfriend Jan Krentz and a hand from Kristin, above, all of the step-outs are fused to interfacing. It will be simpler to install the step-outs, starting next week, in my class at the Long Beach Quilt Festival.

Jan and I met in the summer of 2002. She drove me over to C&T Publishing in an SUV. Big car for a big time.

These days, several books and hundreds of workshops later, we meet at dawn on Skype or wherever the subway may take us for memorable times

On the Bus and On Point, Part II

2011-05-28T19:18:00.019-04:00

With an agreeable nephew in tow, I got off the bus, transferred to the subway and rode off to the 1:00 p.m. Quilters' Guild of Brooklyn meeting. Except that the Guild meets at 11:00 a.m. Oops.
No wonder the bagel platters were empty.

Squares on Point

Now the previous Saturday I'd gone to the Empire Guild meeting in Manhattan to see my favorite sister act, Mary Mashuta and Roberta Horton. That's a 1:00 p.m.meeting from which we traipsed to the Doughnut Plant outpost on 23rd Street to sugar out. I blame the sugar.

While in my Brooklyn state of disbelief at missing 99% of the meeting, I was awestruck as Micki Segel unpacked her Square on Point quilt for me. Look at what I nearly missed. She cut squares from eighth yard pieces. What a knockout. I smiled all the way home on the subway thinking about her phenomenal use of fabric.

Micki Segel (right) and her marvelous Square on Point quilt top

I recorded my original Square-on-Point technique in January 2005 with Alex Anderson

I improved this 2005 technique and detail it with more than thirty photographs in my 2010 book Rotary Cutting Revolution. Using my new CuttingLines™ pattern, the mat needn't be marked. Use any size squares, the finished blocks will be 1¼ inches smaller than those squares.

On the Bus and On Point, Part I

2011-04-23T00:14:00.006-04:00

Multitasking in Manhattan includes window shopping from the bus

I was seated across from the back door on the 57th Street bus a week ago headed to my guild meeting. When the door opened at the Fifth Avenue stop I looked up from my reading to see the display window below. My Weekly Reader these days is a smartphone with a camera. [click to zoom in on the images]

I immediately thought of the captivating "Leaves" summer spread (circa 1850) pictured in the inaugural edition (1983) of The Quilt Digest. I wonder if the window dresser was influenced by such a quilt. Now I see Roderick Kiracofe, who published the Digest with the late Michael Kile, autographed my copy in October 1994. If only I could remember the occasion.

The Old Italian Block: Then and now

2011-04-02T22:21:00.009-04:00

All in the same New York week: At Ming's baby shower

and at the "Infinite Variety" exhibition

(top center)

The Old Italian Block is a classic signature block, one of my favorites, whether multicolored or in the ubiquitous Red and White. Tomorrow my friend Ming begins her westward migration to Portland with personalized blocks as women on the Oregon trail did over one hundred and fifty years ago.

The Old Italian Block is the cover quilt of Rotary Cutting Revolution
April 2, 2011 Older posts

Electric Quilt Block of the Month

2011-02-28T16:40:00.016-05:00

EQ January Jumble

Andrea Bishop of the Electric Quilt Company announced the irresistible EQ 2011 block of the month program. She provides PDFs each month for rotary cutting, templates and foundation patterns in various colorings and EQ7 project files. You can make the blocks without EQ7. I made two blocks.

EQ February Frolic

That I am fond of paper piecing is an understatement. So I pieced them my Make It Simpler® way: each on a single sheet of Simple Foundations vellum. Because, if you don't cut a foundation apart, you never have to put the pieces back together.

Five steps to February Frolic

The February block is a nine patch. I scored the vellum foundation that I printed into nine subunits before sewing. The construction was similar to the Nine-Patch Variation that I demonstrated here in 2003. The demo is viewable only on computers based in the US.

Above is the back of my six inch block, before I sewed the remaining four seams, my "Tic Tac Toe" seams. Here's March

EQ March Medley

Alexander Henry Imperial Kiku
was used for trapezoids

and above are my EQ BOMs for May, June and July 2011

Wouldn't it be nice to sew together?

2011-01-17T21:42:00.003-05:00

I'll be teaching my Scrappy Pineapple Workshop March 20 -25, 2011 at the renown "Empty Spools" where week-long quilting retreats are held at "Asilomar" in Pacific Grove, California. Good Vibrations

View several "Empty Threads" teachers live online Wednesday, March 2nd at 6:00PM PT

Quilt Storage Tip and Intro

2010-12-05T16:34:00.003-05:00

Oh Christmas tree

My quilts are big. I stored them in every convenient space in the apartment, excepting a bathtub, which was already taken for fabric. When packing for a teaching trip I'd invariably have a panic attack because I couldn't find a quilt or two or three.

Now they are contained. What once was lost, now is found:

100 Blocks Blog Tour Day 4

2010-11-11T00:49:00.009-05:00

Perspective on my Simple Celebration block

Its center square is suitable for a photo transfer; the side triangles are paper pieced. They are foreshortened to make the block appear curved. It can be made with a few as two fabrics. It's my "go to" block when I need one that will look well in a sampler quilt

It's #148 on p45. In the quilt Gallery, p74, it's in Peggy Jorgensen's curvaceous "Ribbon Riot" and in Donna Benham's "Citrus Spice" Sampler

One reason Quiltmaker is exemplary is the Quilting Motifs included in every issue; this issue's designs are sized for the 12" blocks

I'm giving this pair away* which includes my signature vellum

I live in Manhattan; I took the subway downtown last spring to Timeless Treasures Fabrics on Broadway and chose Botanica fabric by Lourdes Sanchez. I cut it up and saved some for two of you. I'll never forget visiting 'TT' with my friend the late Denise Bradley to select 'brights' for a group quilt. She gazed at mountains of fabric and then pronounced herself verklempt.

Using the Electric Quilt, I designed and made the above block in the early '90s, a paper piecing pattern. One of my long term quilting obsessions is the Square on Point block. I added "short" triangles to the perimeter.

I've adored this block from the moment I made it. I made it again for the 2000 "Spirit of a Milltown" Block Challenge using a photo transfer of an image of a 19th century Mill girl for the center. Seen below, the block was auctioned online among a group to benefit the New England Quilt Museum.

Still loving the block, in 2003 I designed an all-in-one piece paper piecing pattern of it for my second book, Perfect Blocks. Extraordinary colorist that she is, my friend Jeri Riggs pieced it.

Quiltmaker will give away one copy of 100 Blocks on my behalf. Comment by telling how many years you've had quilting on your mind. To do so you may have to open this as a separate post. I'll use Random.org to select the winner late Sunday evening November 14th. On the other hand, you can always buy me

* I sent a pair of giveaways of TT fabric and Simple Foundations Vellum to Quiltmaker; follow their Quilty Pleasures blog to enter.

Today is Veteran's Day. I have a rule about Federal Holidays. I make it a point to always sew on Federal Holidays.

Quiltmaker Magazine and Giveaway

2010-10-11T21:29:00.004-04:00

Christmas in October
I'm always excited to see the fabric quilters choose to work with. It's part of the magic in the air during workshops. The images below are from the Arrowhead workshop I gave this past summer at "Quilting by the Lake" in Syracuse.

Recently six staff members of Quiltmaker Magazine chose different Christmas fabric collections to make their Arrowhead.quilts. The six quilts are featured in Quiltmaker's November/December 2010 issue in an article that presents my rotary cutting method for the Arrowhead block. In true Quiltmaker thoroughness, everything is covered, including a quilting motif. The icing on the cake was this interview and giveaway.

March 2011 edit from Anita: Though Quiltmaker magazine sold out of all printed issues of Nov/Dec ’10, that issue is now available as a digital download. It’s also available as part of the 2010 Collection on DVD

Boise Blues at hand

2010-10-06T19:20:00.011-04:00

This quilt has 110 blocks. It calls for 110 eight inch fabric squares; no fabric is wasted.

The magic ingredient crisscrossing this quilt are the Japanese indigos. I stumbled upon them in 2004 at the City Quilter in New York. Cathy Izzo, the shop's owner harvested them at Quilt Market and lugged them home. I spied them on the counter, still wrapped in cellophane, and pleaded with Cathy to sell ALL of them to me, never dreaming the quilt would be seen on Simply Quilts in 2005 let alone become a cover girl.

A year ago this February I was in Boise, Idaho having a blast. The weather was milder than New York.

I explored their Anne Frank Memorial, attended the Boise Basin Quilters meeting where I demonstrated my Super-Sized Nine Patch Quilt, taught in the largest shop classroom I've ever been in, Patty Hinkel's Quilt Crossing, when Patty and I weren't out sampling Vietnamese food at lunchtime. I knew about the Boise Art Museum's collection, they even had some 19th century American quilts on display. What I didn't know was that the area is home to the largest Basque community in the United States. I enjoyed a Basquaise meal with unforgettable friends that I had first met three weeks earlier in New York.

My rarest moments were 'underground' in the Cotton Club. That's Cheryl Little's internet shop, below street level, in a period office building, where she curates fabric collections for her fortunate customers.

Have at look Cheryl's contribution to Making it Simpler: her splendid Cotton Club indigo kit. Look around the site. I started shopping at the Cotton Club when they were strictly mail order and my computer monitor's screen was monochrome green.

In July 2011 I'll be in California to teach the my "New" Old Italian Block in Long Beach for Quilts Inc Summer Festival, class #215.

Fabric Love

2010-09-11T13:49:00.005-04:00

It's true. I do ...starch fabric.

Muggy summer days have passed. I've resumed ironing and starching fabric. I press blocks but iron fabric, usually with National Public Radio's "Weekend Edition" as background.

I begin by sewing like-size colors and yardage into continuous loops. No loose ends means nothing to tangle. Ahhh. The loop above was photographed just out of the dryer. I wrote about my regime for the Marcus Fabrics website and detail it in the "Ask Anita" chapter of Rotary Cutting Revolution

Boulder Big Time

2010-09-01T14:34:00.003-04:00

Objects of my affection

I shipped my quilts to Boulder and reunited with them and my former editor Darra Williamson on the set of The Quilt Show

Photos by Gregory Case Photography

Alex Anderson and Ricky Tims explored techniques from my third book Rotary Cutting Revolution Alex demonstrated my Pineapple CuttingLines™ Pattern. Stay tuned to see what held our attention when this photograph was taken.

B-52 is not a presser foot

2010-08-11T17:54:00.004-04:00

See what you missed? The very embodiment of the abundant grace and loveliness of the Quilting by the Lake faculty at their Friday night After Party.

It was a long day but we never let our hair down

Connecting Threads No-Waste Windmill

2010-07-13T21:15:00.012-04:00

Would you like fabric with that book?

Karen Johnson interviewed me and, together with C&T Publishing, set-up a generous giveaway to celebrate my No-Waste Windmill Quilt.

I cut the above Windmill blades from stacks of 8" Connecting Thread fabric squares with a technique on mine. I don't use a template, I don't need to read the lines on a ruler. There is no wasted fabric. And it's unbiased. The edges of each block are on the straight-of-grain! I took these two photographs of my CuttingLines™ pattern during its development.

The actual fifty-eight how-to photographs for the No-Waste Windmill block are in my Rotary Cutting Revolution book on sale at this time. (July 13, 2010) It's one of eight different block techniques. The faster I cut my patches, the sooner I get to fondle and sew them. What's not to like about that? Alas, there is one correction to the first printing.

Freezer paper 101

2010-07-06T13:35:00.010-04:00

Design wall alternative
With only 14 rotary strokes I can cut 64 pineapple patches to size, enough trapezoids and triangles for two Pineapple blocks from two squares of fabric. The resulting patches are interchangeable.

Hint: I iron the patches to the shiny sides of freezer paper. They remain in place until I peel them off to sew a block. The blocks are conventionally machine pieced, not foundation pieced. The freezer paper can be reused.

Make It Simpler Scrappy Pineapple detail

Pineapples are fabric intensive. A 15" freezer paper mock-up results in a 10" finished block; that's over 60% lost to seam allowances.

Quilt Show at QBL

2010-06-26T17:06:00.007-04:00

Seeing Red. Let the Fabric Work for You

The Red Xcentric Concentric Sampler Quilt 60 x 40 inches 2004 - 2008

from the book Rotary Cutting Revolution

There are 18 blocks in this quilt
Each 14" unfinished block took only 11 seams. No triangles were used to make the blocks, only fabric squares. Revolutionary!

Got stripes? Make It Simpler.

Quilting by the Lake 2010

2010-05-31T10:35:00.009-04:00

Summertime,

And the livin' is easy Fabrics are jumpin' And the cotton is high.

Quilting by the Lake in New York state. I'm offering four unique workshops over the last two weeks in July. Advance preparation is minimal.

Cut it, Sew It, Love It

2010-05-31T09:45:00.002-04:00

Launch party at The City Quilter

May 2010

Demo, trunk show and book signing courtesy The City Quilter, New York. Their picture album. I devised an original way to cut 64 trapezoids and triangles for 2 Pineapple blocks from two squares of fabric without measuring, nor waste and using only 14 rotary cuts. One of my eight new techniques. Who's smiling now? Rotary Cutting Revolution

A Picture is Worth One Thousand Words

2010-05-10T18:23:00.007-04:00

These are a few of my favorite things

The front, the back and the frontispiece from the book Rotary Cutting Revolution. And speaking of pictures, there are over 300 in this book. But, there is one, only one, paper pieced block in the book.

There is a Google preview of several pages of the book on the the publisher's website. Look for the the Google preview button here More than one thousand words and quite a few pictures.

Tip of the Rotary Iceberg

2010-04-25T10:06:00.004-04:00

Made in the shade, with only 2 rotary cuts

There are 26 Tip Boxes in Rotary Cutting Revolution.

This tip from the book leaves many quilters momentarily speechless in workshops.

To quickly and accurately cut a large square of fabric using a small square ruler:

1. Fold an oversive square of fabric into fourths

2. Cut off raw edges to create a fabric square 1/2 the desired size.

3. Unfold square. Voila, it's the desired size. Gasp.

Pictured: A torn oversize square of fabric approximately 18" was folded into fourths. Now about 9" square it will be trimmed to 8 1/2" square by cutting off the raw edges (top and right) Unfolded, it will be 17" square.

Be there and be square with less space, Make It Simpler.

Smartphone, Smart Girl, Smart Block

2010-04-17T00:06:00.007-04:00

Diagonally speaking Arrowhead Piece Talks

Laura Yellen Catlan with her Arrowhead Piece Talks at the 2010 Long Island Quilters' Society Show, March 2010, in Garden City, NY. I'm particularly fond of blocks with strong diagonals. They enliven this quilt almost as much as Laura's juxtaposition of playful fabrics. She probably used over 150 different fabrics. Nice juggling.

A 'Laura' block

Assorted Arrowhead fabric kits sold by Quiltmaker here

The Pineapple is an old Favorite -Eveline Foland, 1931

2010-04-10T01:17:00.021-04:00

Timeless and Original

Five Pineapple peeks on the May 2010 publication of my "Rotary Cutting Revolution"

77" square Windmill Blades blowing in the wind Photo courtesy The Quilt Complex

74" square

70" square

I made them 21st century Simpler with my CuttingLines™ pattern
Workshop information

March Madness

2010-04-01T01:34:00.002-04:00

Boxes. Goodbye and Hello

March 12, 2009 Quilts headed to Mother C&T, Concord, California

Two weeks later photography samples being boxed up

March 2010, one year later, samples back home.

Within a month, the best boxes in the world should arrive at my doorstep from C&T Publishing. I'm expecting my third book, "Rotary Cutting Revolution: New One-Step Cutting, 8 Quilt Blocks, The Make It Simpler Way®" It's a juicy book brimming with photographs. Very, very juicy.

My No-Waste Windmill

2010-03-06T13:04:00.009-05:00

Bordering on track

Big Love 36" square 2010

I love, love, loved using my own cutting technique for this baby quilt. Look at the border. The orientation of the directional fabric was maintained. Nancy Wolff's pooches are upright.

I did not use a specialized ruler. There was no waste in cutting the fabric. No measuring. No Swiss cheese holes in the remaining yardage. My only efforts were pure pleasure: choosing stash fabrics to amuse my great-nephew.

By the way, this Windmill quilt is easier to construct than an ordinary four-patch. Believe it or not, its 36 blocks are square; the corners needn't match up. Happy girl.

But woe is me, I didn't catch a photography error on page 60. The correction is here

My One and Only Two-Color Pineapple

2010-02-26T23:57:00.010-05:00

Economy in a new setting

I make bed quilts. I make them my way. In 2004 I figured out how to cut two squares of fabric into 64 trapezoids and triangles to make a pair of ordinary Pineapple blocks. I do this without measuring. I do it without wasting any fabric. And I do it with only 14 rotary cuts.

Discarded metal kitchen cabinets were mine for the taking. I hauled them onto a dolly which I pushed up the street to my apartment. My building superintendent installed them in my sewing room. Because they are metal, I use magnets to attach quilt blocks to the cabinets' surfaces. It's a New York City design wall where every space is used to its advantage.

Mysterious Scraps of the Self-Mitered Log Cabin

2010-01-27T07:26:00.077-05:00

Rocky Road Trip: Denver and Boise Workshops

The Self-Mitered Log Cabin leftovers

These are my leftovers. Others made their own at the February 2010 workshops at the Great American Quilt Factory and the Quilt Crossing.

The Origin of the Self-Mitered Log Cabin

2010-01-26T23:04:00.027-05:00

It's About Time

Show and Tell New York 1997

Where it all began

I first began printing geometric block patterns using Electric Quilt software onto onion-skin paper for foundation piecing in the early '90s. Some years later, McCall’s Quilting magazine launched the Basic Realities contest which featured Jinny Beyer fabric.

I entered Reality Check using one of the early patterns. It was karma. Among the prizes I won were a half-dozen books from C&T Publishing. In 2000 I made a miniature version: "Manhattan Two-Step."

I started the Self-Mitered Log Cabin in 2002 but put aside to write "Make It Simpler Paper Piecing" 2003 and its sequel "Perfect Blocks in Minutes" one year later for C&T Publishing I returned to the S-MLC and published it in Rotary Cutting Revolution." You may think you know how I pieced it but I bet you don't. You can't tell by looking at the quilt.

Reality Check 1997

Self-Mitered Log Cabin Block

Self-Mitered Log Cabin top

The Self-Mitered Quilt 2002-2008 69" x 81" (detail)

Nine-Patch Variation Block January 2010

2010-01-01T14:34:00.008-05:00

Fabric as fluid as paint

Quilt Moment New Year's Day
Cutting 2½" square and triangle patches and arranging them over time into blocks. A two decade project as of today. I arrange the patches into "mock ups" slipping each into a transparent file folder for safe-keeping (lower left) I revisit the folders with a fresh eye before sewing.

NB January 20, 2010 WYSIWYG On the table at Rose Cottage

NB December 5, 2010 progress
Last night I returned to paper Piecing my Nine-patch Variations. Two hours of fabric pleasure.

Up in Lights Times Square December 2009

2010-01-01T14:27:00.059-05:00

The Panasonic 28' x 38' foot Astrovision screen. Times Square photo ©Dale Riehl 2009, courtesy The City Quilter, New York

Paper piecing my way to...Times Square
The City Quilter quilt shop sponsored an exhibition of juried entries that had to have been made in New York.The Panasonic screening was an unexpected bonus of 15 seconds of fame, twice an hour, for five weeks, for some quilts.

Key West Beauty 2003. My six inch finished foundation pattern appears in Make It Simpler Paper Piecing

The Key West Beauty is a traditional block but the unique foundation pattern is of my design. Each of the 25 blocks in this scrappy quilt was individually paper pieced, onto a sheet of translucent vellum. The fabrics, based on old Pennsylvania Dutch patterns were from the 2003 collection by Anita Shackelford “Pennsylvania Plain & Fancy” for P&B Textiles.

Janice E. Petre of Sinking Spring, PA machine quilted the clamshell motif. The quilt was among 60 in the exhibition "Made in New York: City Quilting" Autumn, 2009, held at the Williams Club (NYC) organized by the City Quilter and curated by Judy Doenias.

There are no curved lines in the blocks; the circular illusion is created by strongly contrasting fabrics. The illusion works when the adjoining blocks meet (or appear to meet). When piecing the blocks I had an oversized bathroom so that’s where I hung the blocks as they were completed above, one by one.

Paper Piecing Tip:
Bring the paper to the first patch, not the patch to the paper

Left: The unfolded foundation pattern, printed side up. The fabric patch wrong side up.

Middle: Hovering pattern over patch after a light application of a fabric glue stick to the intended area of the vellum.

Right: Seal the deal. Press the vellum to the patch. All patches were cut to size.

Talk about magnification: from 30 inches wide to 38 feet wide, quite the stretch. So much for “It will never be noticed on a galloping horse.”

Nine-Patch Variation Block November 2009

2010-01-01T13:30:00.006-05:00

The Long and Short of It

In 2003, Make It Simpler® Paper Piecing was recorded for Simply Quilts.
[As of June 2011, the video is embedded at conclusion of this post]
Since then I've been assembling Nine-patch Variation blocks as demonstrated during the show. Six years later, they are the departure point for this evolving Blog.

I first encountered the Nine-patch Variation as a BOM (Block of the Month) in the early '90s at the Empire Quilters guild in New York. The center squares, in red, were not split. I sewed 4 blocks, dark edges together in a side by side arrangement, forming a Sunshine and Shadow layout.

I date this piece circa 1993 by looking at it's back. I no longer press seams to the sides as shown above. I found that I prefer seams pressed open.

A few 'Split' Nine-patch Variation quilts are documented in New Jersey Quilts 1777 to 1950

As an ongoing diversion and reward to myself, I've pieced 140 blocks to date, each 6-1/2" unfinished, on Simple Foundations translucent vellum

My foundation pattern, that accompanies the 2003 Simply Quilts video may be downloaded here

Directions

The pattern with step-by-step directions is in each of my first two books The authentic version of Make It Simpler Paper Piecing is 9 x 11 inches, not 8 ½ x 11 inches) Altogether over 100 block foundation patterns. Additional video tutorials

Six Video Segments from "Simply Quilts"

2010-01-01T12:00:00.020-05:00

Make It Simpler Paper Piecing

Simply Quilts episode #935 (2003)

• VIDEO Paper Piecing Introduction part 1

• VIDEO Nine Patch Variation part 2
• Printable Directions

•VIDEO More blocks including Hugs & Kisses part 3

Make It Simpler Rotary Cutting

Simply Quilts episode #1129 (2005) featuring my Square on Point and Old Italian Block techniques which were updated and improved five years later in the book Rotary Cutting Revolution

• VIDEO Super Fast Rotary Cutting: Square on Point

• VIDEO Real Simple Quilt Blocks: The Old Italian Block

• VIDEO Super-Size-a-Nine-Patch Quilt,
the visual to Anita's Quiltmaker PDF

The above HGTV videos can be viewed only on computers located in U.S.