Coming Soon from Stash Books - Paper Pieced Modern: 13 Stunning Quilts, Step-by-Step Visual Guide

In January of 2012, I designed my first paper-pieced quilt. Little did I know what road I was embarking on.

 

I spent 5 months on that quilt. I wasn't perfect at paper-piecing, but I was learning. And I loved the control I had over the design and precision of the quilt. I could easily achieve shapes and points that would have been a pain to create otherwise.

More paper-piecing in my future? Yes please! A month later, I designed my Winter Trees block pattern (which, as you know, is now downloadable for free on Craftsy). It's crazy to think that I designed this block - that I'm using in a quilt now - two whole years ago!

These two patterns marked a change in direction for me. I was delving into modern quilting, throwing myself into paper-piecing, and loved sketching up ideas in Illustrator. So I designed 15 quilts, pitched an idea, and got a book deal:

Pinch me, because this doesn't seem real.

This is a realization of so many dreams, so much work, and my head-first dive into modern quilting. We narrowed it down to 13 quilts and I got to sewing.

The quilt on the cover of the book is called Icy Waters. I was inspired by the thought of chunks of ice breaking off an iceberg in choppy waters.

 

I have a lot of quilts that I make and think to myself, this is really cool, or, I really like how it looks. But this quilt? This one, I look at and say, this is ME. 

I can't describe where this quilt comes from really; it's from my heart. While this quilt expresses a concept, I mostly feel that it expresses me, and who I am, as a quilter. It seems, quintessentially, me.

This quilt is actually made from a single block pattern. It is simply rotated and reflected to look different. Fabric placement is key, and using the white fabric to cover more than one section of some of the blocks further creates the illusion that this is a very complex quilt.

And it is complex - and yet deceptively simple. Just one block.

I had two sources of inspiration, two muses, for this quilt - Tula Pink's Stardust quilt and Charlotte's Fracture quilt. These women possess true design genius and those quilts captivated and inspired me in a wonderful way. Without their work, I would not have been able to design Icy Waters. I cannot credit them enough.

I sent this quilt off to be quilted by the one and only Angela Walters. There are not enough words to describe how beautiful her quilting is. I'm totally in awe of her talent. The quilting elevated this piece to another level.

I'm so excited to share this project with you. This is my quilt, this is me, and it feels like I'm showing you a piece of my soul right now!

I can't wait for the book to come out and look forward to showing you all of the projects in it. I poured my heart into them and hope you love them, too. Before I wrap up, here's a sneak peek of another quilt in the book:

Paper Pieced Modern will be coming to stores in March of 2015. For now, you can pre-order a signed copy here or a regular copy here (Amazon affiliate link: see disclaimer at bottom of site).   

This post is part of the Craft Buds Craft Book Month blog hop. For other posts, and information about prizes, see the announcement post.