My 5 favorite quilt makes!

What is the best birthday gift you have ever received?  Take a moment, close your eyes and really think about it!  Was it something when you were a kid that you REALLY, REALLY wanted??  Or have you received something amazing and thoughtful as an adult?

Birthdays are a time to celebrate life, all that you’ve done, trips taken, time friend friends and family.  But, if I’m being honest, my birthday wasn’t always my favorite time, having all eyes focused on me for a day…I much preferred celebrating others.  But this year will be my 42nd trip around the sun and I’m fully embracing the celebration!!! (After all, my word of the year for 2022 is “growth” and I’m at a place where I can actually see the personal growth I’ve been working on!) 

And, since I released my first quilt pattern on my birthday, its also time to celebrate Nollie Bean’s third anniversary!  I was thinking about how to celebrate both myself and Nollie Bean….so I’m sharing my top 5 favorite quilts that I’ve made!!  I’m sharing a peak behind the scenes of what I was going through or thinking about during each of these makes.

Number 5 - Purple/Green State Avenue from the Quilt-along

The fabric pull for this quilt really spoke to me, the earthiness of the colors, the texture of the wovens, it is just so good!!  I also love a good mix-and-match quilt and State Avenue does not disappoint.

This quilt will always hold a special place in my heart as I made it during the first quilt-along I hosted.  I spent more time photographing the process of making this quilt than I have for pretty much any other make.  I learned so much throughout the process of hosting my first quilt-along - this process helped me improve my photography skills.  Up until that point, I had a pretty standard set of pictures I would take during the making process and that just wasn’t going to cut it for a six week quilt-along!!  I would quietly — before my 3-year-old-at-the-time son woke up — take pictures of fabric all over the house, trying out different lighting and angles.  I learned lessons that I still use today!

This quilt is one we keep in the home and use, particularly in the winter months when watching a movie! 

Want to make your own State Avenue Quilt?  You can pick up the pattern here.

Number 4 - Orangewood - The Inferno One

Okay, from the moment I saw Guicy Guice’s Inferno collection, I KNEW I had to make an Orangewood quilt with it!!!

The Orangewood Quilt was designed to be able to showcase a rainbow spectrum and when this ombre, rainbow collection came out I could not get my hands on this fabric fast enough!!!!  My only regret is that I didn’t make the quilt bigger! (Okay, maybe I have two regrets…I also regret not hoarding more of this collection to make more!)

This was just one of those times where magic happened…plain and simple.  While the Orangewood Quilt pattern is a fun and versatile quilt to make, it was designed with the full rainbow spectrum in mind and the ombre effect of the Inferno fabric line is…well…perfect!! 

Want to make your own Orangewood Quilt?  You can pick up the pattern here.

Number 3 - Clarendon Cover Quilt

I am very proud of the color theory of this quilt.  I wanted to create a two-color quilt that had a lot of dimension.  This quilt calls for 16 fat quarters so I knew I could get a lot of hues and saturation with the pink fabrics and the green fabrics.

I’m very intuitive when playing with fabrics and usually select fabrics for a quilt pretty quickly using the “trust your gut” method, but I took a different approach with this fabric pull.  I started out with a cup of coffee, my Kona Color Cards, and a picture of a pink flower for inspiration.  I sat with those color cards for a long time swapping out different colors for a while before I called it good.  I feel like the gamble paid off, and this quilt has a special place in my heart and home!

Want to make your own Clarendon Quilt?  You can pick up the pattern here.

Number 2 - Cinnabar Cover Quilt

This quilt is another instance of the right fabric falling into place in the best possible way!  I designed the Cinnabar Quilt to pay homage to my grandmother who passed in 2020.  She influenced my life in so many ways, including her love of the desert.  The Cinnabar Quilt is my representation of bright shining stars over the desert, and I knew I wanted the cover quilt to have earthy, bold colors.  I selected my fabrics, pieced the top, and then went in search of a backing fabric.

One of my favorite memories of her house near the edge of the desert preserve were the little desert bunnies.  So, I typed “rabbit” into the search bar of an online fabric shop and one of the few fabrics that returned was this amazing print from Bonnie Christine’s Forest Floor collection that perfectly complemented the colors of the quilt top….even down to the hint of seafoam green!

I have a few scraps left over from that backing that I’m saving in hopes that I’ll think of the perfect project to use them in. 

Want to make your own Cinnabar Quilt?  You can pick up the pattern here.

Number 1 - Desert Cove Cover Quilt

Before we get into the fabric pull, I’ll admit that the backing is a big reason I love this quilt so much!  This Rifle Paper Co. print from the Strawberry Fields collection is one of my favorites ever!!  Something about soft florals with moths speaks to me…

But before I picked that backing out, I selected the fabrics for the quilt top.  As I was designing this pattern, I knew it would create a lot of color movement through the quilt and I wanted to experiment with a monochromatic palette and I settled on peach.  I had a couple of prints in mind that I wanted to use and then filled in all of the gaps by studying my trusty Kona Color Cards again. 

Once I placed my order, I stalked my mailbox until the magical packages arrived!! I could not wait to see and touch all of the fabrics in person to make sure they were the right choices!  I loved them even more once they were all next to each other.  Then, it was time to cut them up and create a perfectly peachy jumble of fabric strips!!  That gorgeous backing fabric is just icing on the cake!

Want to make your own Desert Cove?  You can pick up the pattern here.

Thank you for joining me on this trip down memory lane!  Now, let’s circle back to birthday celebrations! What is something that you really want for yourself right now?  A piece of clothing, a special dinner, a bundle of a specific fabric collection?  What ever that is, I invite you to celebrate yourself right along with me this year.  So in the words of Donna Meagle and Tom Haverford, Treat Yo’self!!!!