New Block of the Month

A new block of the month will be introduced at the shop starting in January 2012. To prepare, I'm working on a complete quilt top to hang at the shop along with a second set of blocks and block parts to use for teaching the class. The entire quilt uses only five different fabrics. The blocks use three fabrics and the other two are sashing and border. The cover picture of the quilt does a good job illustrating the five fabric version so my sample is going to be made scrappy style.


Most of my stash is sorted by color, but a few special designers get their own bin. Nancy Halvorsen is one of those designers. She has been a staple in our shop from day one. With at least two fabric collections a year, I've built up a good assortment of her fabrics. Another advantage in going with this designer is that no matter how much time passes, or whether her collections lean toward brighter or more muted, they all work together.

The first step was to dump the bin and sort it all by color family. Then it was time for consultation. "Hey hon, if you could only choose three colors for a quilt, which three would you choose?" Red, green, and yellow were his choices.


I didn't want this to turn into a Christmas quilt, but those color choices were certainly leaning in that direction. Time to add more definition to this project. I sorted the chosen colors by value.


The yellow is definitely the light. To the right is green as medium, red as dark. To the left of yellow, pink is medium, green is dark. For this project, the left side won (I decided not to go for another consultation!). I'll choose a different fabric from each group for each block.

Here's the first block:


Only twelve more to go!