Quilt Market Houston 2013

Marny here...

We tried posting on the road, but the post didn't load.  Here are just a few pictures.

Sure sign of arrival in the West!

Left side of the single Modern Quilt Relish booth at Houston Quilt Market 2013.  Lunch Boxes is the featured pattern on that wall.  You can see the black and white Child size, the green and orange Baby size, and the yellow and gray Throw.

More of the back wall of Picnic sampler and projects and a bit of the right wall with Cutlery quilts and a peek at Torte.  From left to right you can see a tiny bit of the Lunch Boxes runner, the new Flatbread table runner in solids,  a Torte runner with silk accents, and a cutlery runner with batiks, using a dark in the rectangles and a light as accents.

Now for a real look at the right wall.  Cutlery quilts in the corner of the booth and Torte quilts on the right.  

Enjoying the booth.  

More on Tuesday...

Process Promises & Pattern Give Away

Lunch Boxes, child size 

jill here....A few weeks ago, before introducing our newest pattern, I alluded to our design and fabric selections.  There are so many wonderful positive and negative fabric patterns on the market so finding ways to use them is a fun experiment.  Graphic blacks and whites with saturated colors create kid-friendly quilts.  And the asymmetrical nine patch is perfect for that intersection of transparency.  In this case, the yellow orange and the red orange intersect to create orange. The colors don't have to make accurate sense:  they could be just three fun colors that define the lines for the "gridded" appearance. Just keep in mind the values and their backgrounds.

With Spring slow to arrive, I was in a bug to create a table runner that was fresh and colorful. I discovered several fabrics from a designer that had special meaning.  At International Quilt Market, three years ago, we were given the book Scatter Joy, written and signed by artist Kathy Davis.  Her fabric line is "Happiness" for Free Spirit.  She creates wonderful water color images, often flowers with geometrics and written graphics.  This more stylized floral appealed to me.

Lunch Boxes corners. 

Lunch Boxes "opposite"... really more of a change
 in value, pattern and scale...a nice accompaniment. 

This is the small scale aqua chosen for the background.
It's directional but the pattern is written to
maintain its vertical orientation.

Mocking up choices is a good test to finalize selections.
The yellow green works well but the" intersection" fabric
and the medium value leading into it are too close in value.

This variegated stripe had just the right saturated colors.

Too many strong patterns and saturation
...took away from the emphasis.

Switched again but the light vertical was just too light.
The aqua near solid was a relief to the eye and brought in
more of the darker tones.

The yellow green vertical was again too strong
for the more subtle look I was aiming for.

Final choice:  Small scaled plaid as the vertical with the aqua
as both the intersection and medium value.  Using the aqua in
both places simplifies and reiterates the darker value.

Stitched in the ditch quilting....more later.

Ready for spring...

Into the yard.  'Till next Tuesday....

To win a copy of our newest pattern, Lunch Boxes leave a spring filled comment!  Drawing will be at 5 pm Central Time, Monday, May 20th.

New Pattern from Modern Quilt Relish

Drumroll please...Here, as promised, is our about to be released, never seen before pattern, Lunch Boxes.  

We love how it turned out.  Hope you do too!

Lunch Boxes pattern from Modern Quilt Relish

The yellow and gray quilt on the cover features a brand new line of fabric from Benartex.  It is called What's the Buzz from the Kanvas designers.  We used five sets of "opposite" fabrics in the blocks, a wonderful directional stripe as the background, and another print fabric that served as the "intersection" of the horizontal and vertical lines running through the quilt.  Such cute names.  Such cute fabric!!! This quilt will be in the Benartex booth at Quilt Market in Portland this month.  Again thank you Benartex!

• Daisy Buzz, the opposite set of Yellow and Black, with Gray being the intersection fabric

This one was a good
 intersection because
 it merges the gray
 vertical with the
yellow horizontal.

• Dotz, the opposite set of Black and Yellow

• Buzz Words, the opposite set of Black and White

• Flower Buzz, the opposite set of Gray and Yellow

• Buzzy Bee, the opposite set of Gray and Yellow

• Styx, as the background in white

• There are also solids in gray and yellow from Benartex

In the yellow version we kept the darker fabrics of the opposite sets at the Lunch Box corners and the lighter fabrics in the Lunch Box middles.  The dark blocks are on a light background.  The dark solid runs vertically in this quilt and the lighter solid runs horizontally through the lighter Lunch Box middles.

The pattern makes four sizes; Table Runner, Baby, Child and Throw.  It is written to take into account the incredible backgrounds you find that are directional fabrics.  Hooray!  If you don't want to use a variety of opposite sets the pattern is also written for all sizes using just one set of opposites as pictured in the Child size quilt on the cover.

We will begin shipping patterns Monday, May 13.  

Next week we'll be discussing the fabrics in the Child size quilt, and why they were chosen.  We always like to learn and teach from our own experimentation.  Not to mention, give away patterns!  Yep, pattern giveaway announced next week.

Till then....