Run Wild Quilt Pattern

January 4, 2019

Surprise! I have a new quilt pattern available now.

Meet Run Wild!

And EVERYTHING in my shop is 20% off with code RUNWILD through Tuesday January 8th!

The Run Wild Quilt Pattern reflects my love of color and movement. I really wanted to create a pattern that gave order to chaos through color pairings and block rotation. It is such a fun and playful pattern that gives you endless opportunities to make a dynamic quilt! The pattern comes in two sizes and two design variations. It is FQ friendly and beginner friendly. I also include detailed instructions on curating your palette to have the ombre effect. You can buy the PDF here or the PREORDER Paper Pattern here.

Oh! And meet my Kona Cotton Designer Palette FQ Bundle!!!

WHAT! Whaatttttt. Deep breaths, deep breaths. I know, it's crazy town right?!

One day in late summer an email from Robert Kaufman just waltzed right into my inbox asking if I would want to curate a designer Kona Cotton palette and a FQ friendly quilt pattern to go with it. SHUT THE FRONT DOOR. I definitely read the email like 4 or 5 times to make sure I was reading it right. I immediately wanted to scream YES! But then I realized, I should read it, think things over, make sure I am asking the right questions before jumping head first into something I haven't done before.

I distinctly remember receiving the email back to all my questions and putting any concerns to rest on the drive to the coast with my family. We were out of service and then the second we popped back in, I got the email and thought "wow, okay, this is really happening". And I told my husband and said "I am so surprised, I am not more stressed because this is kinda a big deal!" And he looked at me and goes "yeah... I'll wait" haha!

Not even 10 minutes later did I start to have an anxiety attack. It hit me that I would have to curate a palette that would represent me, my brand, my color style, my design sense that THEN a company would sell. I have a company depending on me and my color palette to sell a bundle. WHAT IS HAPPENING. I kept thinking "oh my gosh, what does Then Came June look like?" "How am I going to convey all of that into solid fabric?" "It has to be new and fresh and still look like me!" "I want someone to see it and think, of course! That is a Then Came June palette" "I think I may vomit." My husband was smart to wait for the stress to come.

Thankfully playing with color and fabric is my favorite part of the design process. It brings me so much joy to imagine colors together, lay out my Kona Color swatches and just mix and match until my heart is content. So, that is what I did.

I pretty quickly settled on the design that would become Run Wild. The only requirements in this design process were it had to be FQ friendly, use every color in my bundle and use most of the FQ itself (not a lot of scrap). I had actually settled on the design before I settled on the color palette. Here are a few other options I had originally thought of for my bundle:

I love all of these ideas above but none of them jumped out at me as THE ONE. I would definitely make any or all of them in the future though. Or one of you may find them as your inspiration point for your own Run Wild!

The one that obviously stuck played with some of my favorite colors in a variety of tones. Yellows, golds, peaches, pale purples, berry and blues.

Once I sent my color requests in, I was so antsy to get them in the mail. I am always a little nervous to order fabric that I have either only seen on a computer screen or in just the small swatches. You never know if the palette will look as good in real life compared to the vision in your head. The day I got my fabric, I squealed!

The palette brings me so much joy and cheerfulness. I knew I wanted to settle on something bright and fresh for the New Year. And it is perfect for spring and summer time quilt projects. My Kona Cotton Designer FQ Bundle will be shipping to stores March 2019. The FQ Bundle includes 20 Kona Cotton colors and is a beautiful palette used all together. But, it is also curated so you can break the bundle into sub-palettes and work on smaller quilts or projects.

Okay back to the quilt. So now that I had my fabric and my design, it was time to start sewing! This is probably my favorite progress shot of this whole project:

So much life and work and love in that stack of blocks.

I sewed up my blocks over a couple of days because this whole project was a TIME CRUNCH. Oh yeah, I haven't told you yet. I also had three other quilts made using my bundle. ;) Anyyywhooo, that will be another blogpost soon. So, I laid out my quilt blocks and kept referencing my diagram to make sure I had them all oriented the correct way. Ladies and gentlemen, I, the designer of this pattern, had to check my diagram 500 times before sewing it together. Just always reference a diagram! haha.

There are a lot of seams to match in this pattern so pinning will be your best friend! And I give two different ways to assemble your top together - row construction or quadrant construction. I love sewing in quadrants because it's less material to put through your machine and have drag off to the side.

Oh boy, seeing this final top done was so satisfying. I really really love this pattern.

Funny story - I had JUST finished this quilt top and the next day I went to the hospital for an emergency appendectomy. That part isn't funny but once we were home from the hospital, I made my husband go outside to hold this up so I could take a photo of it complete. I am pretty sure I was on my pain meds and that was the only time I stood up that day. Ahhh the things I do for quilting haha. I am just happy we were able to capture the last of the fall leaves.

I am so happy that Jess of Threaded Quilting had agreed to quilt this top for me and the three others with a quick turn around. Bless her and her patience with me too. I am sure I sent her 30 quilting ideas, went back and forth for all of them and finally choose a design I had done before - the Boardwalk panto. #imtheworst She so kindly humored me and jumped to the task at hand! The following photos are ones that Jess took of her amazing quilting.

I bound it in Bright Idea Kona Cotton and backed it with Paris Blue. I never had a chance to take a full finished quilt photo but good thing Robert Kaufman takes amazing photos!

The stack above is a sneak peak of all the quilts made with my Bundle. I will be posting another blogpost soon about them and their creation.

Because this project was more secret than most of mine are, I did not plan for testers. But, I really lucked out when Sarah reached out to me over the holidays and offered to test. She said her schedule was open and she wanted a fun new project to work on. Boy, did I hit the jackpot!

Sarah made a stunning version of Run Wild. She actually merged the two design styles and made this amazing version: