Perfect Harmony (on the wall!)

Asian prints have a sophisticated elegance to them, and Ro Gregg's Dancing Cranes collection fits this description perfectly, highlighted with metallic gold accents. Designers Sue Harvey and Sandy Boobar of Pine Tree Country Quilts framed the collection's panel with a unique design of pieced blocks that integrate seamlessly--as Sue says, "we definitely do not do just plain borders around a panel!"

"Perfect Harmony" featured in the Feb-March issue of Quilt magazine

Q.  What attracted you to the fabric line?

Sue: We have always loved the lush florals of Oriental-style fabrics. And the panel in this collection is really beautiful.

Q. How did you decide what type of piecing to put around the panel?

Sue: We wanted the panel to become part of the piecing. Fortunately one of the fabrics in the collection is the same as the background of the panel so by using this fabric in the piecing directly around the panel, the straight edges of the panel disappear. By using rectangular blocks, we could accommodate the “twice as long as wide” problem of the panel while still adding distinctly angular lines to offset all the flowing lines of the panel and the outer border fabric.

Q. What do you like about working with Asian-inspired designs?

Sue: The rich colors of the fabrics, and that they almost always include black. We tend to use black to set off color or the design in many of our quilts. It’s the one basic fabric that we keep in stock (actually bolts of it in stock) at all times!

Q. What do you like best about this quilt?

Sue: When all was said and done....its size! We think it really does show off the fabric in a good way. The scale of the prints is fairly small and the motifs in the panel are quite delicate. The challenge of making a small quilt was a good thing. We had only enough room to add a little piecing so the prints of the fabric were not overwhelmed. It’s funny ... the designs we do with limits are often the ones that we end up liking the best!

See the entire Dancing Cranes collection here.
Order the kit for this project and learn more about Pine Tree Country Quilts here.
To find the February/March issue of Quilt, click here.