Presenting Cosmic Cloud

When Island Batik put out a call for quilt design submissions for its Fall 2022 fabric releases, I fell in love with the Double Dutch Collection.  It's blue.  Lots of pretty blues.  Of course I fell in love.  Island Batik sent me four blues plus the background to make a sample.

Double Dutch batiks from Island Batik

I was in a rush to get started and neglected to take pictures of the fabrics.  The picture above is the only progress picture I took, because I was "in the zone", too happy to be sewing to pause to take pictures.

Here's a closeup of the finished top so you can see the prints.

Closeup of Cosmic Cloud by Canuck Quilter Designs
Batiks from the Double Dutch collection from Island Batik

As with most of my patterns, all the angles are created with easy stitch-and-flip corners, which explains the pile of triangles in the first photo.  Those trimmed corners create a lot of triangles.  I'd like to say I saved them all for a future project, but no.  These would have been rather small once seam allowances took a bite out of them, and I knew that if I saved them, they would just sit in a bin for a few years until I needed the space and I disposed of them anyway.  So I looked at the pretty blue pile, enjoyed it for a minute or two, then disposed of it.

If you've admired the pretty blue prints long enough, we'll move on to the full quilt reveal.  Here is Cosmic Cloud!

Cosmic Cloud by Canuck Quilter Designs
Fabrics from the Double Dutch collection from Island Batik

I am so pleased with how it turned out!  I love the movement in this design.  I'm also tickled that I figured out how to make it with just two simple units, just switching out colours as needed to create the design.

If blue isn't your cup of tea, there is still plenty of potential here.  You could choose a different monochrome color palette or you could choose multiple colors. You could use modern prints or traditional prints or solids.  My three testers' quilt are great examples.  Thank you so much for the testing help Judy, Tina and Sunny!

Upper left: Judy Juhl (FB: Judy Otte Juhl)
Upper right and lower right : Tina F.
Lower left: Sunny Becker (IG: sunny_4_now, FB: Sunny Becker)

Another photo of my quilt just because I love it so much.

I'm off to sew the rest of the day.  I have some Echo Point placemats that have been waiting over a year for quilting and binding.  I think it's time!  What's under your needle today?

Happy quilting,

Joanne

Double Dutch fabrics are available in stores now.

The Cosmic Cloud pattern is available as a PDF download in my Etsy shop or you can ask your favourite quilt shop for a print version.  Shops, please my website for wholesale information or visit distributors Checker, Brewer and EE Schenck.

Design process: Woven Kisses edition

The quilt top for my scrappy test of the upcoming mystery quilt turned out really, really well.  Keeping it to myself a little bit longer is much more challenging than I anticipated.  I keep telling myself to not upload that photo just yet.

To temper that urge, I'll share an older finish, designed and made for the Fall/Winter 2023 Island Batik catalog.  

Woven Kisses by Canuck Quilter Designs
Fabric from Romance Garden, an Island Batik Signature Collection
by Kathy Engle for Sherry Shish of Powered by Quilting 

I really like the interlocking parts in the kiss block.  It's a pretty simple design, but it didn't show up in my head ready to drop into a grid layout and be a quilt.  I thought you might like a look at the design journey.  I looked back into my EQ file to see how the design evolved.  You'll notice there was some backtracking involved.  

Did you recognize my Cosmic Cloud in there?  It was the blue one halfway through.  It cropped up partway when I made a certain choice, but there was still a kernel of another idea there so I went back later and explored another direction until Woven Kisses showed up.

I had a little oops with my test blocks. 

It helps to pay attention to unit orientation.  I ended up getting reacquainted with my seam ripper.  Paying attention would have been more efficient.

I made these without cutting any triangles.  If you've used any of my patterns, you know I'm partial to not cutting triangles.  Stitch-and-flip methods are my favourites. That led to a last-minute change to the design.  It turns out that using the stitch and flip method to make four units at a time created two pairs of mirror image units instead of four identical units as I had planned.  That's why the two blocks are also mirror images.

With that figured out, I finalized my first draft of the pattern, petted some pretty fabric and started cutting.

I also designed a hug block as a variation.

Unfortunately, adding some of these to the design would have made the fabric and cutting requirements complicated.  Looking at it now, I wish I had figured out how to include it.  Ah well, I can keep it in my back pocket to use in something new later.

I hope you enjoyed this glimpse into my design process.  I'm off to work on some tips and tutorials for the Mystery quilt-along, followed by another date with EQ to see where a few new ideas may lead.

Happy quilting,

Joanne

Woven Kisses is now available in PDF format from my Etsy shop, or in print from your favorite quilt shop.  It includes five sizes, from throw to king.  I think making just 6 squares would make a cute baby quilt too.