Quilt Verve

09/10/2026

I think I’m finally figuring out what I want my quilt patterns to be.

I was a fabric designer before I was a quilt pattern designer, and I’m endlessly inspired by vintage textiles—old block prints, botanicals, ornament, pattern and all the tiny details that make a piece of fabric feel like something you want to keep forever.

So when I design a quilt block, I don’t really want it to feel like a quilt block. I want to take everything I love about those textiles and figure out how to build it with piecing.

This Marigold has been my latest experiment in doing exactly that. 🌼

Still a work in progress, but I can finally see the textile I had in my head starting to appear.

09/08/2026

09/08/2026

This is probably my favorite thing about foundation paper piecing—you can piece almost anything.

Instead of starting with a traditional quilt block, I can start with the shape I want to create, break it apart, and figure out how to build it back up in fabric.

Which is especially fun for someone like me who would much rather piece the complicated thing than figure out how to quilt it. 😂

And after lots of tiny, slightly mysterious sections, this Marigold is finally starting to look like a flower. 🌼

09/06/2026

I finished one UFO… so obviously it’s time to pull another one out of the drawer. 😂

But I can’t decide which one deserves to be next.

Which one would you finish? Vote by number below ↓

And yes, apparently I have a type: colorful, complicated, and 90% finished.

09/04/2026

An old friend I lost touch with years ago reached out today after his wife happened to find one of my quilting videos on YouTube.

I’d actually tried to find him before and couldn’t. Apparently quilting had other plans. ❤️

One of those unexpected little gifts of putting the things you make out into the world.

09/02/2026

This marigold is slowly starting to grow. 🌼

I’m test sewing my way through 13 foundation paper pieced sections—making, checking, occasionally ripping something back out, and figuring out how all these strange little pieces become the flower I drew.

Three sections down. Ten more to go.

I think this might be one of those blocks where the awkward middle makes the finished piece that much better.

09/01/2026

In hindsight, leaving an entire collection of fat quarters on the floor may have been interpreted as an invitation. 😂

I saw a fabric stash. He saw stepping stones.

Totally fair.

09/01/2026

The hardest part of designing a complicated quilt block usually isn’t sewing it — it’s figuring out the order.

I’m building this marigold one section at a time, and right now I’m testing how all of these individual shapes need to come together before I commit to the full block.

Two sections down. Eleven more to figure out. 🌼

I think this one is going to be worth it.