Trend Following - 3D Quilts

Late last year, when people began sharing the quilts they had entered into Quiltcon, I noticed there were several quilts that used 3D blocks.  I fell in love with all of them and decided to give 3D quilt design a try.

City Planner Quilt

After designing this quilt I submitted it to Modern Patchwork magazine and it was accepted for publication in the May/June 2017 issue, out now!

This is my second quilt pattern published in Modern Patchwork, which still blows me away.  I've also had two rejections from Quiltcon magazine but it's all part of the process.  Most importantly I love making quilts and enjoy writing patterns so for now I'll keep plugging away at both.

As I stated in the title of the post I was following a trend which is a great way to challenge yourself to break out of a design rut.  I started with a simple 3D block that I placed in a grid.  Then used an offset border in a unique way to add more depth.   The end effect created the appearance of an aerial view of a downtown.

City Planner quilt

When quilting this project I tried to use textures that were reminiscent to drawing aids, e.g. graph paper, rulers and a compass.

City Planner quilt

I really like the overall effect of this design and it was fun to experiment with 3D block design as well as a new color palette.

To wrap things up I'll give you a sneak peek at what I've been working on.

This design is inspired by a Melody Miller print Roller Rink for Cotton and Steel and one of the first time I purchased the backing fabric for a quilt before I had designed it but this roller skate print was too great to pass up and and excuse to work with neon pink works for me!

Hopefully I will have a finished quilt to show soon.  It has been my intention to write a new post every two weeks, or so, this year and I think I had done a fairly good job at that until this post that ended up a little late because I was waiting to get my quilt back from the magazine.  I'm thinking this roller skate design will get me back on track.