Hello, spring!

Spring has sprung and it's time for a Quilt Along! Sandra Walker of MMM Quilts is hosting one starting today on her blog, using our Freeform fabrics. We asked Sandra to tell us about her design and her decision to use the Freeform prints. Read her answers and then head over to her blog to join the fun (there are prizes, too!)!

Q. Tell us about your original Windfall quilt.

SW: I made the first shadow quilt, called Windfall, for the Autumn Abundance blog hop sponsored by Paintbrush Studio Fabrics, and hosted by Bernie of Needle and Foot. I fell in love with the Windfall fabrics even from seeing them on my computer screen, and they were even richer in person, much like the rich colours of the Fall that I now experience living in southern Ontario with the wide variety of trees and slow gentle Fall weather there compared to my prairie roots. (See Sandra's first quilt here.)

Q. What attracted you to the Freeform fabrics?

SW: The Freeform fabric looks hand-dyed, much like a batik to me. It speaks of soft spring-like weather and days, new foliage, and warmer days ahead.

Q. What is your favorite fabric in the collection? 

SW: Oh it’s too hard to pick as I love them all!  If I had to pick, it would probably be the soft brick mottled background I used, or the one with sort of polka-dots, again a soft mottled multi-colour one. 

Q. How did you choose which fabrics to use where in your design?

SW: I knew I wanted a light for a background and a green leaf this time, being spring.  I like the brightness and diamond shape, of the green I chose for the leaf, much like sun-dappled leaves, and the softness and contrast in print of the brick I chose for the background.  After that I looked for contrast in colour and in value when deciding where to place the various coloured leaves.  I used every single fabric in the line as each one is so pretty!

Q. How did you come up with your design?

SW: The design is based on two quilts in the book Shadow Quilts by Patricia Maixner Magret and Donna Ingram Slusser.  One has a pattern but a slightly different leaf, the other is in the gallery.  I’ve had the book since 2000. I made a shadow trees quilt based on one of the gallery quilts (so again I used that quilt as a jumping-off point and had to draft my own pattern) for a guild challenge and always have loved layering in quilt design.

Q. What is your favorite thing about this quilt? 

SW: My favourite thing about the quilt is the one ghost leaf, and probably that I think I got the wind-blown effect I was looking for with the quilted swirls in the background.

Find the Freeform fabrics here and ask for them at your local quilt shop.