I’m still working on the final version of the pattern, but I’m happy to report that it has survived two rounds of testing and people have been very supportive of my very first pattern. I’m so excited! I hope to have it ready very soon in PDF and printed forms.
I designed this quilt during Lent of last year, during my “no new projects or fabrics” discipline. I have found that I do some of my best design work during that period of time. The first year was really hard, but last year I actually enjoyed it. This year I’m even looking forward to it, which is bizarre. But I can’t wait to see what I come up with this time!
In any case, here’s “Big Bang,” which was unnamed at the beginning of October when I posted about it in my Finish Along goals for the 4th quarter of 2014. Every title I came up with was too obvious until I realized that “Big Bang” was perfect — it’s the first in what I predict to be quite a few patterns authored by me, and the title gives a nod to the nerdy side without being too obviously geeky or too cliche. I didn’t want my title to tether people to making their quilt with a dark background or the same fabrics I chose, because it’s interesting on other backgrounds and in other colors as well.
I quilted it very heavily to obscure the seam lines, and I chose contrasting threads for the outer borders to continue that illusion. It took a long time and lots of patience to quilt all of it this densely, but the effect was exactly what I hoped for. I could not be happier with the way it turned out.
For the back, I pieced together the remaining chunks of fabrics from the front (Anna Maria Horner True Colors and Dowry, as well as Moda Grunge in “Picnic” from the PB&J line). The binding is Moda Grunge in “Plum,” which seemed to set off the quilt perfectly without dominating the edge of it.
This quilt and the process of writing the pattern was a huge growth experience for me. I learned how to use Adobe Illustrator, InDesign, and relearned Photoshop to write the pattern. I’ve always said that I wanted to write my own patterns, but it was the insistence of some friends when they saw the quilt top in September that pushed out of the nest and forced me to try to fly. I will be forever indebted. They also became the first testers for the pattern, which was a huge gift of time and energy from them.
I will post details on where/when to find the pattern when it is finally complete. That should hopefully be very soon!
This is amazing and you’ve had such a brilliant idea with the quilting on the border.