Dinner Plates Free Modern Quilt Pattern, Quilt Along, Sew Along

Marny here...Welcome everyone.  Yippee, we get to start today with choosing fabrics!

The steps to the quilt will be given every other week.  They will remain easily accessible in our sidebar under the link Dinner Plates.

Let me remind you what the completed Dinner Plate quilt looks like.  It is a queen size. Directions will also be given for the throw.  (The throw involves the same size blocks, just fewer of them.)

The sample quilt has a range of contemporary fabrics in soft pastels.  They combine to give a bit of a blended look.  It is soft and summery.  I might choose fabrics in a wider range of values (lights to darks) if they were available and did not take over from the pretty florals I started with.

I had fun in the Quilting Connection the other day choosing piles of fabric to represent choices that would be great fun to make up into Dinner Plates.  (If any of you are around the area I am sure the store could get the fabrics together for you, or a close facsimile, if you mention they are in our blog.)

First let's look at a grouping of fresh contemporary fabrics.

The white on pink polka dot is a Maywood, Going on Thirty.  The remaining fabrics,
left to right, are all Free Spirit by Dena Designs.  They are Kumari Garden-Sacha,
Leanika-Gemstone, Kumari Garden-Tarika, Kumari Garden-Sanjay,
and Kumari Garden-Jeevan.

Now look at a grouping of batiks.

The batiks range from blue into green, the picture shows a bit
more yellow in the green than there really is.  There is a variety
 of textures/patterns, scales, and hue.

And finally, take a peek at a cute grouping of Children's novelty prints.   This one is hard to resist.

The whales and the butterflies are Robert Kaufman Urban Zoologie by Ann Kelle.
The white with green polka dots is a Lakehouse fabric.  The tone on tone green
 is Moda Summerhouse by Lily Ashbury.   The multicolored dot on pink is again a
Robert Kaufman Dot Remix by Ann Kelle and the tone on tone pink dot is another
Robert Kaufman fabric called a Mixmaster Dot.

To summarize fabric selection.

A minimum of six different fabrics are required.  You can certainly have a scrappier quilt using half yards or fat quarters.  Try to have a range of values (light to dark), textures, pattern, scale and a pleasing color story.  All the fabrics will end up either next to or in conjunction with one another.  Most importantly though, HAVE FUN!!!

Cutting instructions will be posted Tuesday, August 16th.

So everybody tell your friends, pass it around, join in and let us know if you have questions or comments.  We love to hear from you.  

Till Tuesday...