Arbor Lane’s humble beginning started with this lovely rough sketch.  Every one of my quilt designs starts with my own hand, pencil, and paper.  I spend so much of my day at the computer, I welcome the back-to-basics of sketching and playing in my journal.  And that’s exactly what I was doing here:  dreaming of a medallion design I would love to make.

I wanted it to be a quilt that a beginner could make, especially since the blocks are pre-cut.  While the piecing and applique would be simple, I wanted a sophisticated look to the quilt.  No sampler look here:  I wanted a beautiful harmony in the design.

Ten designs were ultimately offered to JoAnn’s, and they selected mine.  The process was much like Project Runway, but we were each in our own studio, sketching, measuring, coloring, and giving it our all.  Our own version of Tim Gunn would guide us in the right direction:  center design too similar to what had been done before, tweaking color schemes, sending block designs every week to my tester Scarlette for her wonderful work.  Every moment of dreaming, design, and making Arbor Lane was a joy.  I learned much and grew as a designer and an entrepreneur

See that vase and those birds?  While JoAnn’s didn’t use them, I did later in my table runner series.  The vase shows up in Petite Pineapples and a simple version of the birds is in Winter Bird and Petite Pineapples.  You never know where a creative journey will take you.

Remember, you have until the end of the week to guess how long it took me to make Arbor Lane:  cutting, piecing, and applique.  Some lovely fall fabric could be coming your way!

I am thrilled I can finally announce my big news:  this beauty is mine.  Arbor Lane, JoAnn’s 2010 QuiltBlock of the Month quilt design, is mine.  My goal for this quilt was for it not to look like a Block of the Month.  I wanted to develop a design that had never been done before.  I love medallion quilts, but had never made one, let alone design one.  Why not?  A girl can dream, can’t she?  I must admit, the team was skeptical.  Designers had tried to fit a medallion quilt into monthly kits before, but it hadn’t ever worked.  Too many restrictions on shapes, number of pieces, and a lot of behind-the-scenes details.  But I was determined.  After all, nothing presents a challenge like hearing “that’s never been done before.”

Here’s are photos of the quilt top in my home, before it went to the longarm quilter to work her magic:

I’ll be sharing the genesis of Arbor Lane with you each day this week.  I give you a sneak peek into my design process, unveil thumbnail sketches, alternative color palettes, and designs that ended up on the cutting table and never made it into the quilt.  It’s going to be fun week:  don’t miss it!

To kick things off in a grand scale, let’s have a contest, shall we?  I’ll be giving away a fall color palette of fabric to the lucky quilter who can guess how long it took me to make this quilt.  Leave your guess in the comment section and I’ll award the fabric at the end of the week.

You will too after you experience the luscious blue-green quilts offered up this month by indie quilt designers from the Yahoo Quilt Designers Collective.  Get advice from and see the quilts of Pat Sloan, Barbara Campbell, Sarah Whitney, Helen Stubbings, Marilyn Foreman, and Marcy Horswill. To view the show in Full Screen mode or to embed this slideshow in your blog, just click the Menu link.

August’s featured color is blue-green, the hottest color of 2010.  Petite Pineapples combines tradition with trend, juxtaposing 19th century-style hand applique with trendy blue-greens of 2010.  This sweet runner uses a clean color palette of teal, aqua, brown, and cream, and bids a fond farewell to summer.  Not a hand-applique fan?  Happy for you, this project is machine-applique friendly.

Petite Pineapples also shows you how easy it is to get a completely different look by changing just one color.  This runner uses exactly the same fabrics as July’s Christmas Cabin, only I’ve exchanged teal for red.  By making one small change, I completely transformed this color scheme, and you can too.  I show you how.

The dogtooth border is a classic hand-applique treatment, and I show you an easy way to cut and applique it, getting perfectly sharp points without any worries.  Subscribers to the pattern series get exclusive access to a video on how make this border, so you can follow along with me.   The freemotion wavy echo quilting design is simple to execute but impressive in the final runner, and I outline exactly how to do it.

Petite Pineapples Pattern Update:  $5.95 (delivered early and automatically to pattern series subscribers – keep reading!)  Add to Cart

If you can’t get to the quilt shop to select your own fabrics, no worries.  I’m offering a Petite Pineapples kit as well.  It’s best to choose your own fabrics for your color palettes, but we all have those times when life gets too busy and we just can’t get to it.  I’d rather you be able to do the lesson with a kit than not at all.

Petite Pineapples Kit: $21.95 Add to Cart

Learn by Doing

In addition to learning how to applique the Petite Pineapples block and coordinate a fresh color palette, you’ll also discover how to:

• cut and place applique motifs improvisationally, 19th century-style
• make the applique process effortless with my Applique Checklist
• make an impressive dogtooth border with my step-by-step instructions and video
• quilt a freemotion wavy echo design for stunning results

So not only do you get a sophisticated and new original design, you update your skills as well.

Learn New Techniques

Improvisational cutting and placement are new to many quilters who rely on 21-century techniques that focus on precision, precision, precision.  This approach allows you the freedom and flexibility to give each block it’s own unique charm and eccentricities.

If you’ve only relied on freezer paper or fabric glue, let me introduce you to the world of needle turn applique by eye.  It’s a wonderfully relaxing technique that gives each applique motif an exceptional look while harmonizing with the project as a whole.

If you’ve been intimidated by dogtooth borders in the past, or always wanted to try one, this is your chance.  I give you a no-fail technique that details the process, step-by-step.

Subscribe to the Enhanced Pattern Series

The Petite Pineapples pattern update is $5.95, and includes all instructions for making the table runner blocks, border, backing, and binding.

If you’d like to subscribe to the table runner enhanced pattern series for the entire year, I’m offering a special price of $$18.95.  Here’s what’s included:

• save 55% off the full price
• get 12 original table runner designs
• learn a new color palette and quilting technique each month
• receive early access to the patterns, automatically delivered to your inbox, before I publish it on my website
• get member’s-only access to a special forum where we’ll chat online about color and the pattern series
• video tutorials you can watch of Maria demonstrating how to do new techniques

The subscription will be available for a short time only, as these runners will be in an upcoming book!

Color-of-the-Month Pattern Series:  $18.95 Add to Cart

Color Tips for Quilters by Maria Peagler