National Zoo Lover's Day is today, and The Zoo Family Portrait Quilt is based on animal photographs I took during visits to my local zoo.
Today, the pattern for the Zoo Family Portrait is 20% off to celebrate!
thenotsodramaticlife.etsy.com
My #pantonequiltchallenge mini quilt is all foundation paper pieced so a lot of my cutting and process work looks like a pile of clippings!
#pantonequiltchallenge2025 #miniquilt #modernminiquilt #modernquilt #pantonecoloroftheyear #foundationpaperpiecing
This year’s #pantonequiltchallenge2025 features a truly challenging color for me. I am using Ruby + Bee Field Mouse for the dominant Mocha Mousse, and the rest of this mini quilt includes bits of a rainbow of fabrics. Most of the fabric is solids, but a few prints appear too!
I missed all of last year!
It’s the March Quilt Block Mania release day, and that means you can download more than a dozen free patterns for quilt blocks featuring this month’s theme of fancy drinks!
https://thenotsodramaticlife.com/make-this-free-raspberry-lemonade-quilt-block-before-summer/
My partner for the MQG mini quilt swap said she likes geometric designs and the colors of the sea. I landed on a half-rectangle-triangle design incorporating my favorite 1/8" wide slivers and a loose gradient from pale green to deep violet.
thenotsodramaticlife.com/a-creative-s...
I recently returned to exploring straight-line quilting as a key design element, and this time, I went with bold colors for both the piecing and the quilting! This quilt is displayed at QuiltCon this week in the small quilt category.
17.5" x 17.5"
The MQG announced a transparency challenge category for 2025, and I decided to go the most literal route by making a transparent quilt. The top and middle layers are pieced to form the overall design, and the final layer is white to create a pastel version of the quilt when the piece is reversed.
You have a beautiful space!
100 Days of Apple Cores was my 2024 100-Day project. For each apple core shape, I improvisationally pieced a section of fabric and then used an Accuquilt machine to cut the final shape. I’m over the moon that this quilt won third place at QuiltCon in the Modern Traditionalism Category.
52" x 61"
Yes, the technique is almost exactly the same. This one has some smaller pieces of appliqué that overlap.
I am thrilled that my appliqué quilt, Oasis, received second place in its category at QuiltCon 2025!
Based on my photographs from a road trip last summer, Oasis captures desert plants and red rock formations as needle-turn appliqué. This quilt is in the appliqué category at QuiltCon this year.
100 Days of Greenery is my first major pictorial appliqué with a modern twist. None of the appliqué pieces touch each other, exposing the gradient background fabric and giving the piece a stained glass effect. This quilt received third place in the appliqué category at QuiltCon 2024.
35" x 41"
An exploration of stripes and maximalism led to the quilt Keeping It 100, which I made as my 2022 100-day project. It was rejected from QuiltCon 2023 but accepted in 2024 as part of the Maximalism exhibit.
58" x 66"
I recently shared my quilt, Emergence, that I made leading up to QuiltCon Together in 2021. Upon completing that quilt, I had a pile of scraps that I turned into Next Verse Different Than the First during the virtual event. This quilt went on to get juried into QuiltCon 2024.
37" x 45"
Tipsy was inspired by the 2023 Pantone color of the year, which is a mix of solids and prints with extensive use of pieced 1/8" lines. This quilt was juried into QuiltCon 2024.
18" x 18"
After I appliquéd and quilted Where We Connect, I cut out a circle, bound the cut edges, rotated the circle, and hand-stitched it into the new position, creating a modern reintroducing of a potholder quilt. Where We Connect received third place in the appliqué category in QuiltCon 2023.
44" x 35"
Angled was inspired by the Modern Meets Modern Challenge, sponsored by the International Quilt Museum. We were given four historic quilts to reinterpret into modern designs, and my resulting mini quilt was accepted into QuiltCon 2023. This is the first one of my quilts to sell at a QuiltCon event!
This was at the National Quilt Museum in 2020, but one of my other quilts, Infused Plaid, is a similar technique and in the permanent collection.
When the world shut down in 2020, I did four 100-day projects, ending with Emergence, which I constructed in the 100 days leading up to QuiltCon Together, the virtual event in 2021. This quilt was then juried into QuiltCon 2022.
46" x 61"
Oscillation started as a two-color (plus values of those colors) challenge for a local quilt guild. I chose blue and turquoise to create Oscillation, which was juried into QuiltCon 2022. The curved right side of the quilt is my favorite feature of this quilt!
30" x 39"
Urban Cabins started as a guild challenge to reinterpret a photograph of buildings in downtown Columbus, Ohio, and it appeared in QuiltCon 2022.
30" x 40"
In 2019, Living Coral was the Pantone Color of the Year, and I used four values to create a 3-D illusion. The Value of Coral was part of the virtual 2021 show QuiltCon Together.
56" x 70"
Dense quilting in white and ten bold colors make up String Theory, my only wholecloth quilt that has appeared in QuiltCon. This piece appeared in the virtual show QuiltCon Together in 2021 and in person at QuiltCon 2022.
11" x 11"
In 2019, Living Coral was the Pantone Color of the Year, and I used four values to create a 3-D illusion. The Value of Coral was part of the virtual 2021 show QuiltCon Together.
I combined two simple blocks using a variation of an interleaving technique to create Forward and Back, which appeared in QuiltCon 2020.
Resonance continued my exploration of using colorful thread as a bold design element. This was my first 100-day project, and it appeared in QuiltCon 2020 and the accompanying QuiltCon Magazine. Resonance was rejected from the 2019 show, and I'm glad I entered it again!
This week, on the blog, I’m sharing the process I use to construct and attach a quilt sleeve to hang your masterpiece!
thenotsodramaticlife.com/make-an-easy...
Your map quilt was one of my favorites! I hardly had time to look at the quilts, but I kept coming back to this one.
Stripe Club uses all solid fabrics with color blocking in large blocks and narrow stripes to create the pattern within the quilt. Stripe Club appeared in QuiltCon 2020.
