North Star, find your true north
For all of you who loved our Pas de Deux journey in 2022, I am creating anther quilty masterpiece for 2024. Just like Pas de Deux, it’s a quilt sampler with different patchwork groups that interweave to create a cool, modern look. My 2024 block-of-the-month is called Positivities because every patchwork group connects with a theme for keeping a positive and grounded perspective as you navigate life’s challenges.
We’ve all got challenges - this I know for sure! It is always nice to receive a word of encouragement from a friend. It could be just what you need to hear to help you take that next step in a positive direction. Or perhaps it provides a comforting reminder that we are in this together as humans, as makers, as fellow quilt-lovers.
When I began sketching Positivities the first element that alighted on paper was North Star. It all started with this one block, which set the direction and tone for the quilt. The quilt evolved into a mixture of star, curve and plus elements, floating on a consistent background fabric.
Using a consistent background fabric gives Positivities’ diverse patchwork groups an automatic sense of unity. I will be using a solid for my background and an additional eight solids as repeated color accents in the quilt. On this base I will add my scraps to create happy, scrappy patchwork. Those who sew-along can follow the pattern to use nine solids in the same way, providing a template for a unified scrap quilt. I know that you love to sew scraps, but bringing it all together in a sampler quilt can be challenging. A hybrid approach, combining solids and scraps is a relaxed solution!
My fabric pull for North Star block includes four of the Positivities solids. These are Tilda solids, and of course I will be providing you a list so that you an use the exact same ones, should you like. All of the prints are from my scrap drawers! You only need small amounts of each, since the finished North Star block is just 18 inches.
Sewing this block was my first time utilizing templates generated by EQ8 software. I am sewing with pieced curves, so the templates are essential. I was holding my breath until I finally could sew the curved pieces together. This is the moment of truth. Will it all fit?
And it does! Well - - - there was one template issue which I have since improved, but overall it was a success. Hurray!
Three cheers for North Star, the first block in a very positive journey!!!
2024 will have its challenges, which may be bigger or smaller than every other year; but, we will feel stronger and stay inspired when we walk that road together, one month and one patchwork group at a time. I am looking forward to Positivities! If you are considering joining us, let me know. I appreciate your positive vote and will make sure you don’t miss the big release.
xoxo, Rachel
We have just about reached the halfway point in the original, 12-month Positivities sew-along. It has been a real pleasure to watch your quilts develop via the Instagram hashtag #PositivitiesQuilt. I love your unique constellations of positive patchwork! For those not following along, here are some highlights from our sew-along community.
This work-in-progress is called Collaboration, so named after the Collaboration patchwork group from Positivities quilt which inspired the design. With such a quilt each round of color builds on the one before. They interact with each other in a powerful and sometimes surprising way. The patchwork effect is so different than looking at the fabrics together as simple fabric stack.
Yesterday was a treat. The sun was shining, Elora was playing happily with a neighborhood friend, and I was able to spend loads of time in my sewing room. My goal? To start on Collaboration, a spin-off quilt for Positivities club. I got a great, leaping start!
Did you miss the original release of Positivities Block-of-the-Month in January? If patchwork positivities speak to your soul, I hope you will join us now for a second chance at Positivities! The pattern specifies the solids I used throughout the quilt and the misc. extra scrap colors for each block, so that you can create a quilt just like this one, if you like. On Sale Now!
Time, space, patience - these are my weaknesses. I have, for so long as I can remember, tended to rush through life. My instinct is to run, not walk towards the next good thing. When I find myself in a place that doesn’t suit me, I move.
Exciting News!!! Since your response to Positivities has been so positive, I am going to run a 2nd Chance club that begins in April! It will be a faster-paced club that spreads out the quilt over 6 months instead of 12. Same content - different start date and more compact pace. Maybe you will join us?
Now that my Positivities quilt is up on my design wall, I have a feeling I will be adding to it each week. It’s just so satisfying to fill in the empty spaces with another group of positive patchwork!
Today I have been sewing new blocks for my Positivities quilt. Club members just received the second pattern booklet earlier this week, so it is early days yet in our 12-month club. But naturally, I am working ahead. Would you like to see?
Today before I sewed the last long seam of the quilt top, I paused and stood just staring at it. I came to realize that this quilt is one of my favorites that I have made in the last years. It’s very much my own inspiration, unrelated to other types of patchwork that I have seen, plus the palette is exactly me right now.
Each month in Positivities BOM we will reflect together on a positive theme. With Kaleidoscope it is about being brave enough to look at your life and your choices with a fresh perspective. Perhaps through a book, the advice of a friend or by trusting your small quiet voice, you can experience a paradigm shift that suddenly reveals so many new possibilities.
This week I really took my time with choosing the fabrics for my Inhibition quilt, especially the elements of the fan block. I will be using few fabrics, as I sense that repetition will be an important design element for this quilt. That makes each fabric choice weighty. What a contrast to relaxed scrappy sewing, where everything goes.
I was feeling uneasy and stifled on January first when I sat down to sketch a new quilt. Art is a safe and peaceful way to free yourself; so, I could have sketched something wildly expressive. What actually came out on my paper was the very picture of inhibition - pretty, symmetrical, contained.
The finished block is just half a sun. You might be tempted to make more and a whole sun too, which you can. That’s the thing about a sampler quilt such as Positivities: all of the block directions are there for you should you want to make a whole quilt full!
What fun, what fun, to start the year off with a happy, patchwork pattern club! The January edition went out to club members yesterday. Yay! A few friends have test sewn Positivities blocks and helped me spread the news about the club. Check out what they came up with!
Welcome to a fresh new year and to a fresh new Stitched in Color pattern club! It is such an honor that so many of you are sewing along. Exciting! After you registered for the club, you downloaded the Positivities Prelude document and probably started dreaming up ideas for your quilt. But are still feeling hesitant about how to approach this project?
It’s time, friends! Welcome to the kick-off of our Positivities BOM! You can register today and immediately receive the Positivities Prelude - a welcome pack with introductory info and resources for planning your color and fabric choices. Yippee!
Are you itching to start your Positivities quilt? If you’re like me, the color ideas are swirling around in your head in an exciting, if distracting cloud. Well, friends, get out those colored pencils and let’s pin those ideas to paper.
What will you sew in 2024? A fresh new year is almost upon us, and with it comes a sense of renewal and so many possibilities. My wish for you? Let 2024 be a year in which you create joyfully with your hands, whatever form that takes for you.
There’s good reason that this format is so popular with quilters and with designers like myself. My upcoming Positivities project is a BOM program. Let’s pull back the curtain and unpack this Block of the Month concept.
This is where it begins. I can hole away for hours putting pencil to paper in my graph paper quilt journal. Some parts come easily and others are erased and re-drawn over and over and yet over again. Today you’ll see what I have created! My fingers and toes are crossed that you like it!!
You might wonder why there is a sort of cut-out missing at the upper left corner of the block? That’s so because Expansion nestles beside another Positivities patchwork group, creating an overlap effect. That’s the style of my modern samplers - scattered and overlapping design elements, this time floating on a consistent background fabric.
When life turns on its head, you are faced with so many choices and so many feelings. Creativity definitely helps me stay grounded and positivite. Each month in Positivities BOM we will reflect together on a positive theme. With Sunbeam and Flutters it is about following the warm, the joyful flutters, the sparks in our lives. They are a blessing and a light.
Star Web is the next patchwork group in my 2024 modern sampler, Positivities, which I am excited to share with you. This group marks the importance of connection, community and companionship to our thriving. Yes, I’m talking about friendship!
When I began sketching Positivities the first element that alighted on paper was North Star. It all started with this one block, which set the direction and tone for the quilt. The quilt evolved into a mixture of star, curve and plus elements, floating on a consistent background fabric.
It was the birds that did it! Once I started cutting up that bird print and putting it up on the design wall, I knew I had arrived in my happy patchwork place. Before long I had a delightful rainbow quilt top: happy scrappy rainbow kaleidoscope blocks and pastel rainbow cornerstones, nestled in a bed of black and gray. Very urban-cool, yes?
Confession: lately I have been feeling stumped with my kaleidoscope blocks. I know that I want to set them in an irregular grid, but I also want to make a rainbow blend. One concept requires order while the other suggests freedom. Sometimes it is hard to know what to do next in order to move in the right direction.
Last weekend I visited a park on the other side of town and was mesmerized by the tall, blooming rhododendrons. When I returned yesterday to photograph this quilt, I was so pleased with how the flowers and myriad shades of green coordinate with my latest finish. How lucky! How wonderful. And, yes, I am in love with this quilt!