Prize packages like these are made possible by industry sponsors. In the days to come we’ll be spotlighting the sponsors one by one. We hope you’ll support these businesses at your local quilt stores.

Today’s featured sponsor is FreeSpirit. The quilt top that will be one of the Christmas in July prizes is from the pattern Wildflower Fields in our July/August issue.

It will be made from Love & Joy by Dena Designs and Designer Basics, all by FreeSpirit. The image above was created digitally because the quilt top is still being sewn. Wouldn’t it be fun to display this beauty all finished up during the holidays this year?

I hope you’ll take a few moments to enter Christmas in July. Lots of quilty pleasures will be awarded to lucky winners. One could be YOU!

The Quiltmaker Shuffle

Come on! Get your quilty groove on!

First a little background: At the close of QM’s Block Party in Portland last March, the teachers and Quiltmaker staff shared dinner and debriefing. We told stories and talked quilting and we laughed—a lot!

The Quiltmaker Shuffle was conceived over this dinner after Block Party in Portland. From left, Beth Ferrier, Diane Harris, Gudrun Erla, Bonnie Hunter, Debbie Caffrey, Jo Morton, June Dudley, Peg Spradlin, Darold Spradlin.

Gudrun Erla of GE Designs recounted how she’d led a stretching session for everyone at Block Party, and how much fun it was. She joked that it would be fun to create a whole “routine” for quilters, with moves like shop, cut, press and sew.

Gudrun gets her groove on!

QM’s Editor-in-Chief June Dudley thought it was a great idea. With International Quilt Market right around the corner, she knew that many friends of Quiltmaker would be together (again in Portland) in May. She asked Gudrun to create The Quiltmaker Shuffle for real.

Gudrun’s friend Kirk Johnson created music just for us. We invited 100 Blocks designers and other friends to join us, and at 8 am on Saturday morning before the show even opened—we danced!

If there’s one thing we admire about quilters, it’s their fun-loving attitude. These folks let their hair down and shook it for The Quiltmaker Shuffle! We laughed and danced and clapped and acted silly. It was a blast!

But the best part of all is this: you’re invited to shuffle, too! A separate video will help you learn the simple steps so you can teach it to your bee, guild, or retreat buddies.

The Quiltmaker Shuffle is a great way to take a break between classes or lectures. It’s a perfect icebreaker for your quilting event. You could even plan a flash mob to get people talking about quilting, and you could use The Quiltmaker Shuffle.

Please pass along and make use of The Quiltmaker Shuffle—it’s on us. We’d like to see where it goes, so please use #quiltmakershuffle, @quiltmakermag and @gedesignsgudrun.

You’re invited to subscribe to our YouTube channel, where soon we’ll be adding how-to quilt videos of all kinds. Now—start Shufflin’!

Quiltmaker’s Scrap Squad is a select group of eight QM readers. They take one pattern from each regular issue and make scrappy versions to inspire you.

This is the new July/August ’13 issue with a warm summer sun on the cover. Isn’t it lovely? The featured Scrap Squad quilt from this issue is Turning Points by Carolyn McCormick.

The fabrics are in the Love Flows collection from Maywood Studio. It was quilted by Carol Willey. You may recognize Carolyn McCormick’s name as the inventor of the Add-A-Quarter ruler and as a popular author for Kansas City Star Quilts.

Carolyn’s Add-A-Quarter ruler in action

Carolyn teaches paper piecing around the country, and her students love her methods. She shares some great cutting tips in the Turning Points pattern—you’ll want to have a look.

Carol Hubacek

Today’s featured quilt is by Carol Hubacek from Schererville, Indiana. You’ll hear from Carol in her own words below.

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Developing this project as a queen-sized quilt presented some unique challenges—most having to do with available time and sufficient supplies to “obey” my self-imposed color rules.

This quilt developed from the middle outward. Sometimes I needed to work with partial blocks to maintain my patterns of gradation. I knew that I wanted my blues to grow darker and I wanted three shades of the yellow-red spectrum in each block.

I had a fair amount of this blue on white Asian fabric.  It took me off course with regards to an ombre effect, but it did add some interesting texture.

One of my favorite finds was this fabric that drew all of my reds, yellows, and oranges together in a burst of flame. I saved it for the outermost corners.

I knew that this quilt was going to present a few quilting challenges. I was particularly concerned about some really lumpy intersections.

I chose this all-over fern-like meander so that I could easily steer around those bumps and still end up with a pleasing texture.

Another quilting decision was the weight and color of thread. I auditioned some blues and grays. My final choice was lightweight medium blue so that the end result would be more subtle and less scribbly.

This project was challenging—and sometimes frustrating—but it was always interesting. I’m happy with the finished quilt. I’m confident that Kelly and Cindy will be pleased with the combination of blue and orange, their respective favorite colors, a little bit more candy corn than The Chicago Bears.

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What can you say but just “wow”! Thanks, Carol, for another job well done on Turning Points. You’ll find the pattern for Turning Points in Quiltmaker’s July/August issue.

Main Street in Cedar Rapids, Nebraska

I was tickled pink to meet Cathy Werner from St. Edward, Nebraska, another tiny town in the area. Cathy had the good fortune to be one of the winners in Quiltmaker‘s 2012 Treasure Hunt contest!

Cathy Werner, right, a winner in QM’s 2012 Treasure Hunt contest, is with Diane Harris, QM’s Interactive Editor, at a guild meeting in Cedar Rapids, Nebraska.

She was even carrying a handmade yellow purse from Timeless Treasures fabrics she won in the contest! They’re from the Eclipse line. It was so great to hear that she is using up the prizes! We laughed and chatted about all the things quilters chat about.

She mentioned that at first she thought the Treasure Hunt was a hoax—she was pretty surprised when a large box of prizes actually arrived.

These boxes of prizes went out to Treasure Hunt winners in the 2012 contest.

So I just wanted to assure everyone that Quiltmaker‘s contests are real. We really do give away all the products we talk about during contest promotions. You can always see current contests under the “Contests” tab on our home page at quiltmaker.com.

Right now our Christmas in July contest is current (contest is for U.S. residents). We’re partnering with Gammill to give away a longarm quilting machine, “The Charm,” as well as yards of fabric and other wonderful quilty prizes. There will be 11 lucky winners. One could be you! And it’s not a hoax!

There’s a little trick when it comes to using large-scale fabrics in small patches so I want to share that with you today.

The flowers are about the size of my hand in this large-scale print from Moda Fabrics.

This comes in handy when you have a fabric with the perfect colors for your project, but the patches are small, and the scale of the fabric is large.

Notice the size of the motifs in this print from Blend Fabrics.

Or maybe you just have some fabric that you want to use up. Perhaps you’re making a quilt with Baby Windmills, like this:

Get the free pattern for Baby Windmills by clicking on the image.

Baby Windmills are made from small patches, cut 1.5″ x 2.5″. (Free pattern here.) The fabric with the perfect colors has large flowers on it:

A beautiful large-scale print

You can see that each flower is about the size of my hand.

These flowers are about the size of my hand.

How does that translate into patches that are only 1.5″ x 2.5″?

I cut a few 2.5″ strips of fabric from selvage to selvage, then subcut them into patches 1.5″ x 2.5″.

It looks like these patches might not work.

At this point the patches don’t look like they are going to work at all. They look like distant relatives, if they’re related at all. Pull a few randomly and make a block and…not so great.

The tan patches don’t seem to be closely related.

The background patches don’t seem to be closely related.

But try this instead: Start sorting them into groups, putting patches with similar qualities together.

The beginning of the patch sorting process looks like this.

Pretty soon you have sets of “matching” patches.

After sorting, the patches look like siblings. These will work!

Now they look like siblings—as if they belong together in a family.

Use patches from each group to make some blocks.

Now the background patches hold together. Their clear relationship helps the block tell its story.

Put the blocks together…

The start of a great little quilt!

…and you have the start of a great little Baby Windmills quilt. It’s almost as if the background fabric serves as several different prints. It’s like a bonus!

You have conquered the problem of large-scale fabrics in small patches. Just like magic!

This is the package you purchase for $2.99—yes, less than three dollars. It contains a small sew-on pre-shrunk patch with a QR code that looks like the one below.

(By the way, QR stands for “quick response” code and it’s just another way of storing information, similar to a UPC bar code.)

The package has instructions for how to create a message using audio, video, still photos or text. You create the message and it gets stored by stkr.it. Then you attach the label to the quilt. Anyone who scans the label with a QR code reader will see the message.

With StoryPatches, I could leave this little guy a permanent message.

For example, if I made a Patch Pals quilt for my grandson, I might create a message telling him I love him and have high hopes for him. I’d remind him that snuggling up in that quilt is like wrapping my arms and my love around him tightly, warmly, always and forever.

Ruff Patch, from Quiltmaker’s May/June ’11 issue

I would store the message with the stkr.it folks and attach the label to his quilt.

Add the label with its QR code to the quilt.

He and his parents would always be able to scan the label and instantly hear the message I left behind. I don’t think this would replace a traditional quilt label, instead it’s something that could be added to a traditional quilt label.

I think this is innovative. Neither of my own parents are living, but can you imagine how special it would be if I had StoryPatches with messages from them on special quilts? Or something from one of my grandmothers, or even their mothers? Of course the technology wasn’t available to them, but it is to you and me! This is amazing.

Hold your phone up to this image and scan it with a QR reader to be taken to a demo video I made.

If you actually scan the QR code above with a QR reader on your phone or mobile device, you’ll be taken to a sample message I created. Watch the video and then leave a comment here for a chance to win a StoryPatch of your own. Comments left before midnight Wednesday, June 12 will be eligible to win. We’ll announce winners here.

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StoryPatches come in sew-on or iron-on versions. They also come as StoryStickers in several colors so they can be added to scrapbooks or other crafts. Look for StoryPatches at your local quilt shop or at the stkr.it website.

Quiltmaker’s Scrap Squad is a select group of eight QM readers. They take one pattern from each regular issue and make scrappy versions to inspire you.

Quiltmaker July/August ’13

This is the new July/August ’13 issue with a warm summer sun on the cover. Isn’t it lovely? The featured Scrap Squad quilt from this issue is Turning Points by Carolyn McCormick.

Turning Points by Carolyn McCormick

The fabrics are in the Love Flows collection from Maywood Studio. It was quilted by Carol Willey. You may recognize Carolyn McCormick’s name as the inventor of the Add-A-Quarter ruler and as a popular author for Kansas City Star Quilts.

Carolyn’s Add-A-Quarter ruler in action

Carolyn teaches paper piecing around the country, and her students love her methods. She shares some great cutting tips in the Turning Points pattern—you’ll want to have a look.

Christa Marcotte

The very first Scrap Squad quilt for this issue is by Christa Marcotte from Torquay, Saskatchewan, Canada. She had quite a lot of fun playing with this design. You’ll hear from Christa in her own words below.

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The starting “point” for this quilt was the purchase of a Layer Cake of Kasuri by Moda.

I am really starting to fall in love with Japanese fabrics.

There are a TON of paper pieced points in this quilt!!

To help us with all this paper piecing, Carolyn McCormick sent each of us a little gift!!

I love getting surprises in the mail…that are not bills!!

Two of her rulers:

Add-Enough and Add-A-Quarter!!

This is the original block….

But after a couple of twists and turns…

I decided to go with this setting

I like to chain paper pieced patterns as much as I can to save time and fabric.

And I enlisted my son, Justin for the official paper removal ceremony.

Nothing like spending some quality time together on a otherwise monotonous job!!

As I started to layout all my points I could to see the Red Baron symbol in blue.

It radiated from the center and started to fill in.

I used the larger points as a border edge….

And incorporated the paper pieced cornerstones into the outer border.

The price of one paper removal worker is this quilt!!

Christa’s finished quilt will be going to her son Justin in exchange for his help in removing all the papers.

Hope you like it, Justin!!

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These Scrap Squad gals never cease to amaze me! I love what Christa did—she took a lovely design and made it her own, making decisions as she went along. Beautiful job!

Let’s have a giveaway. I have a copy of Carolyn McCormick’s latest book from Kansas City Star Quilts called A Flock of Feathered Stars. It’s dynamite! I have an Add-A-Quarter ruler I’ll include as well.

Leave a comment here by midnight Sunday, June 9 and  I’ll pick a winner for these and other quilty pleasures. We’ll announce the winner next week. Good luck!

The winner is Sophie, comment #89. Thanks for all the comments!

Not this kind…

Let’s talk about scale. Not the bathroom variety, but the scale in fabrics we use for our quilts. What is it anyway? Why does it matter in your quilts? How can you use it more effectively? Let me see if I can help you answer these questions.

A print from Illuminate by Flora Bowley for Red Rooster Fabrics features medium-scale circles.

What is scale? Simply put, scale is the size of the print on a fabric. It refers to how large or small the motifs are.

A print from Attic Treasures by Gerri Robinson for Red Rooster Fabrics features small-scale circles.

If they are circles or flowers or butterflies, are they 1/8″ across, or are they 10″ across, or are they somewhere in between?

Stripes from Mia by Kathy Brown for Red Rooster Fabrics.

If they are stripes, are they very narrow bands of color or are they very wide? You get the idea.

The small-scale flowers in this print from Red Rooster are spread apart with plenty of space in between them.

Another factor is how the motifs are spaced—how much area there is between them. Some fabrics have the motifs packed tightly together, while others seem to breathe freely by having lots of open (also called negative) space between them.

Let’s use some King’s Crown blocks to learn more. I chose this block because it has small, medium and large-size patches.

This is an 8″ King’s Crown block. I have used only small prints, tightly packed together.

Because the scale of the fabrics are all similar, the block isn’t very interesting.

You can see that just by replacing one set of patches with a fabric in a larger scale, the block improves quite a bit.

But I’m pretty sure I can make it even better, so I change out another set of patches. This time the green patches get a makeover.

Even better! But I still think it’s a little boring, so let’s continue.

There is just SO much of that yellow with the tightly packed little stars. Let’s fix that by adding a medium-scale yellow fabric in the center.

I like this much better. Now I think the block has some interest, some pizzazz. I’d call this a keeper. Notice that I didn’t really change any of the colors, I only changed the scale of the fabrics.

I had another green I wanted to try, so I did, but the scale was too similar to the center patch, so I reverted to my first keeper.

You might be wondering about the time it takes to make all of these sample blocks. The truth is I don’t actually make the blocks, or units, or borders, or whatever I’m trying out. I use a design wall and I audition the fabrics, playing and changing things up until I’m happy.

A design wall is indispensable! It need not be fancy but it should hold fabrics without pinning and be on a vertical surface. A flannel-backed tablecloth works for many people! Read about how to build your own design wall.

Now, back to scale. The block you’ve seen so far has been 8″. Here it is with a ruler for visual reference.

I want you to see that scale is relative. What seems like a medium-scale print in one design will read as large-scale in a different design. I made the same block in different sizes so you could see what I mean.

Here is King’s Crown, the 4″ version.

Notice how differently the scale of the fabrics appear in this smaller version! Not quite as effective, is it?

And just below is the 12″ version of King’s Crown, same fabrics. What do you think of this one?

The point is that when you think about the scale of your fabrics, you must consider it in light of whatever you’re making and how large or small the patches are. What works for a 4″ block may not work well for a 12″ block.

That’s enough food for thought for one day. I’ll be back with Part 2 of All About Scale: Not the Weighing Kind in the days to come.

Big-Print Patchwork: Quilt Patterns for Large-Scale Prints
by Sandy Turner (Martingale, $24.99)

Big-Print Patchwork

Many of us have done it: purchased a beautiful large-scale print and then wondered what to do with it. Sandy Turner to the rescue! Big-Print Patchwork is more than just a pattern book. Sandy helps you understand how to combine these fabrics with traditional blocks so that you can take her lead and design your own quilt with your own fabrics. While there are complete patterns for seven quilts, the quilt gallery of 15 more designs will be just as useful. Soon you’ll be sewing your own big prints into designs you can be proud of.

Patchwork Palette: No-Fail Color Plans for Captivating Quilts
by Donna Lynn Thomas (Martingale, $26.99)

Patchwork Palette

A book that begins with “I am an unapologetic fabric collector!” holds a lot of promise. Donna Lynn Thomas delivers on her subtitle: No-Fail Color Plans for Captivating Quilts. She likes to use many fabrics in her quilts, but in a controlled manner. She uses three fabric recipes—the Rainbow, the Color Family and the Mixed—and she teaches you to use them, too. She covers hue, value and scale and gives patterns for 13 quilts, and then shows each one in an alternate color recipe. It’s a whole lot of inspiration you’ll be happy to own!

Revival: A Study of Early 20th Century Colonial Revival Quilts
by the American Quilt Study Group (Kansas City Star Quilts, $27.95)

Revival!

From the back cover: “Old-fashioned, homespun, noble. The Colonial Revival era linked quiltmakers’ busy hands with a longing for the past, especially Colonial times. Members of the American Quilt Study Group accepted the challenge to study quilts of this era in the best way—by making reproductions of Colonial Revival quilts. See the results of their hands-on study: examining an inspiration quilt, the pattern, the fabrics, the way these quilts were constructed and quilted. Included are 28 study quilts, with patterns for 10. If it is true that we learn best by doing, AQSG member who participate in the quilt studies learn and share in the best way possible!”

If you enjoy quilt history, I highly recommend this title. I hope it won’t be the last one AQSG does, based on a study project. Really outstanding!

Farm-Fresh Quilts: Simple Projects Inspired by the Simple Life
by Kim Gaddy (Kansas City Star Quilts, $24.95)

Farm-Fresh Quilts

Kim Gaddy’s Story Time was one of the most imaginative quilt titles I’d ever seen. She follows it up with Farm-Fresh Quilts, another keeper packed with projects you’ll actually make! They’re fresh and fun—like the Strawberry Quilt. I want to make it in scrappy reds!

The Strawberry Quilt by Kim Gaddy

The Afternoon Walk Pillow got my attention!

Afternoon Walk Pillow by Kim Gaddy

How about the Bee Skep Table Topper?

Bee Skep Table Topper by Kim Gaddy

My son is keeping bees this summer! With a little adjustment I think it could be a good guy quilt, especially if he’s an apiarist.

My son Skip in his bee gear

Check out the scalloped edges on this Vegetable Quilt. Does it get any cuter?

Vegetable Quilt by Kim Gaddy

With so many great projects using a variety of techniques, Farm-Fresh Quilts gives you a lot of bang for your buck. I loved it.

Diamond Traditions: 11 Multifaceted Quilts by Monique Dillard
(C&T Publishing, $19.95)

Diamond Traditions by Monique Dillard

Monique Dillard of Open Gate Quilts has been a friend of Quiltmaker‘s for a long time. She has repeatedly appeared in Quiltmaker’s 100 Blocks and she taught for us at QM’s Block Party in Williamsburg last year. We’re happy to recommend her book Diamond Traditions. The quilts are mostly geometric designs and will give you lots of piecing practice. I love the quilt below, called Radiance, because it takes a minute to understand where the block is. It’s the kind of quilt that holds your attention!

Radiance by Monique Dillard appears in the book Diamond Traditions.

You’ll find this and 10 more designs in Monique’s book. Be sure to check out the border fabrics she uses—enough inspiration there alone to make it a good investment!

I hope you’ll take a look at all of these titles. You won’t be disappointed.

How about a giveaway? I’d love to send these to Quilty Pleasures readers. Please leave a comment here before midnight on Tuesday, June 4 and tell me which one looks most interesting to you. I’ll choose winners mid-week and post them here. Good luck!

The winners have been chosen and notified. They are #45 Terri, #13 Joanna, #19 Mary Jo, #81 Linda and #16 Sue. Thanks to everyone who participated!

Our annual Christmas in July contest is open and you could be one of the 11 lucky winners.

Ten prize package winners will each receive a holiday quilt top seen in our July/August issue plus two yards of fabric from all ten fabric company sponsors…

…a $50 gift certificate from Connecting Threads…

…Grip Strips and a Quilt Ruler Connector from Guidelines4Quilting…

…and a gift box containing 18 spools of 50 weight 100% cotton thread from Madeira.

It really will be like Christmas in July!

A grand prize winner will receive Gammill’s “The Charm” longarm quilting machine valued at $8595.

The contest involves correctly answering simple questions about the sponsors’ products. You’ll find the answers on each sponsor’s website which is linked on the entry form. Because of complex regulations on contests and giveaways, this contest is for U.S. readers only.*

Take a few minutes to enter when you have a chance. These prizes are definitely worth it!