September’s featured color is orange, a perennial challenge for most quilters.  Orange, more than any other color, pops up as quilters’ least favorite color in my workshops.  Well, no more.  I show you, in Autumn Antlers, how to work with orange and make it one of your favorite colors in your quilt’s color palette.

Orange is one of the brightest colors in the quilt shop, and many only think of it for halloween, pumpkins, and garish college football team colors.  That’s about to change, because I give you artist’s tips on how to work with a challenging color and make it your own.  Eric Carle, author and illustrator of gorgeous children’s books, did this with colors he didn’t like, and they became his favorites.  Orange can become one of yours too.  Trust me.

Autumn Antlers design is fun, funky, and sophisticated, and evokes fall without limiting its place on your table to only the fall months.  This runner would be welcome in any season, any month, in any home.  Timeless design, innovative color, all in one stunning runner.

Autumn Antlers 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 an Autumn Antlers 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.

Autumn Antlers Kit: $21.95 Add to Cart

Learn by Doing

In addition to learning how to coordinate a fresh autumn color palette, you’ll also discover how to:

• cut and place applique motifs
• learn the best stitches to use for machine applique, including optimal stitch length and width
• improve your machine applique skills by watching two step-by-step videos (COM Subscribers only)
• quilt a freemotion flame design to harmonize with the antler design

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

Last Opportunity to Subscribe and Buy Patterns

September is the last month you can buy a Color-of-the-Month subscription or individual patterns.  Why?  Because these beauties will be offered in a book, along with a bed quilt using the monthly blocks, that will be available in 2011.  I’ll still be sharing the monthly table runner projects for the rest of the year, but they won’t be available for purchase:  you’ll have to wait for the book!

Subscribe to the Enhanced Pattern Series

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

If you’d like one last chance 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

September is the last month the subscription will be offered, as these runners will be in an upcoming book!  You won’t want to miss it.

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

5 Fabulous Ways to Use Red in a Color Palette

July’s featured color is red, in a festive Christmas table runner, as requested by my loyal Color-of-the-Month e-pattern subscribers. They wanted plenty of time to complete their Christmas runner so they could enjoy it for the entire holiday season.  Christmas Cabin uses the traditional red as its main color, but the aqua and cream are anything but expected.  I was inspired by the retro Christmas villages of my childhood, complete with the chapel and town buildings my Mom lovingly placed under our tree every year.

Pantone has declared turquoise as the 2010’s color-of-the-year, and you’ll discover the difference between it and it’s cousins aqua, teal, jade, and other related blue-green colors and which is appropriate for your next quilt palette.  It’s easy to get these closely related colors confused, but not after you make this sweet holiday treat.

You get my original block Mountain Cabin, inspired by the Appalachian foothills of my home, along with the Snow Forest block, which together make a peaceful and charming holiday scene.

Christmas Cabin 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 Christmas Cabin 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.

Christmas Cabin Kit: $21.95 Add to Cart

Learn by Doing

In addition to learning how to piece the Mountain Cabin block and coordinate a fresh color palette, you’ll also discover how to:

• make a yo-yo wreath for the cabin front
• make Flying Geese without bias seams
• quilt a wood grain design on the cabin walls and roof

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

Learn New Techniques

Flying Geese traditionally have two bias edges that make them difficult to piece accurately, but I show you a technique that eliminates the bias edges for perfect Flying Geese every time.  The yo-yo makes for a decorative wreath, with a button sewn in the middle for a finishing touch.

Forget quilt as desired!  I’ve included quilting designs, the very ones I used in my own project, that give Christmas Cabin wonderful texture. The quilting is the finishing touch that enhances the runner design and gives it a truly sophisticated look.

Subscribe to the Enhanced Pattern Series

The Christmas Cabin pattern update is $5.95, and includes all instructions for making both of 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

This is a special introductory price, so buy today!

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

Inspired by the 150th anniversary of the start of the Civil War in 2011, this table runner gets its name from a battlefield near my home in north Georgia. The red-violet, mustard-yellow, and yellow-green reproduction fabrics give an historical feel to blocks that look like they’d be right at home in Civil War times. I’m not a quilt history expert; rather, I’m inspired by that period of history to create a project that commemorates our history in a muted, dull color palette.

Kennesaw Mountain Pattern Update:  $5.95 (free to 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 Kennesaw Mountain 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.

Kennesaw Mountain Kit:  $21.95 Add to Cart

Learn by Doing

March’s featured color is red-violet, and while most people think of fuschia, magenta, and raspberry, I chose a more elegant and historical palette.

The key to contributing a mood to a quilt is by orchestrating the intensity, or how bright, the colors are.  A child’s quilt relies on high-intensity, bright fabrics to convey an energetic, playful mood; reproduction quilts rely on duller, muted intensity fabrics to create an aged, historical feel.

Learn New Techniques

You’ll learn how to identify the dull fabrics in your stash by making your own intensity wheel, and selecting just the right fabrics for Kennesaw Mountain.

Forget quilt as desired!  I’ve included quilting designs, the very ones I used in my own project, based on simple quilting women of Civil War times would have included in their own quilt.  Color-0f-the-Month subscribers are also enjoying our weekly chats and videos, and are looking forward to a new video on how to do freemotion quilting next month.

Subscribe to the Pattern Series

Kennesaw Mountain pattern update is $5.95, and includes all instructions for making the Simple Blessings and Games, Music, & Knitting blocks.  You’ll need the master January Winter Bird pattern for instructions and dimensions on making the whole table runner.

If you’d like to subscribe to the table runner 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 and by video about color and the pattern series

This is a special introductory price, so buy today!

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