New Quilt Pattern, Starflake

Starflake Quilt Patter
 
When I was getting to know the different prototypes of what eventually became The Ruby Ruler™, of course I had to design some quilts. I wanted to really push the idea of studying fabric values. There’s no better way to play around with this idea than to dig in my scrap bins. I keep my scraps grouped by color, and my green bin was at the top of the stack! I piled all the green scraps up on my worktable and, looking through the Ruby Ruler at them, I started dividing them into color value piles (here’s a little video). From there, without second guessing the value decisions, I sewed the units and laid out the blocks on the design wall.
Starflake quilt
 
Once the entire quilt top was close to being fully up on the design wall, I realized how tired I’d grown of playing with the same scraps, and impulsively grabbed the pink scrap bin. I am so glad I did, because it suddenly gave new life to the entire design!
Ruby Ruler
 
This quilt is not difficult, but I wouldn’t call it simple either. In fact, it can make you a little bit crazy! A few things will make it successful-

  • Its imperative that you have a vertical design wall that you can lay the design out on. Standing back and away from the design is the best way to really be able to understand how the different values are playing with each other. This isn’t as easy to see up close. If you don’t have wall space, here’s a tutorial for a portable design wall.
  • Once you create the light, medium, and dark value piles with your fabrics, don’t second guess your decisions. Its tempting! But try not to. Sure, there may be one or two fabrics that end up being more suited to a different pile than you originally thought, but what really makes this design sparkle and vibrate is the very subtle shifts between color values. Those shifts that made you question which pile they belong in originally? Those are what really add life to this design.
  • And of course, this design was created around the concept of looking through the Ruby Ruler™. It really helps you make more confident value decisions.

And, as for the name Starflake? That’s exactly what it felt like as I was designing it. A floating star, a soft snowflake, shimmery…
The Starflake PDF/downloadable pattern is available all these places online. Wholesale inquiries for printed patterns can email me at blairwisecraft@gmail.com.

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