Feels like summer: Calypso!

Some quilts you look at just make you happy, simple as that. Michele Crawford's "Calypso," featured in the August-September issue of The Quilter magazine, is definitely one of those. She mixed two large focal prints from the Calypso Frogs collection by Ro Gregg with a white tonal and Marblehead Brights framing each block. 

"Calypso" by Michele Crawford;
featured in the August-September issue of The Quilter magazine

Q. Why did you choose the Calypso Frogs fabrics, and how did you decide which fabric to feature as the focal print?

Michele: I thought that the bright leaves print in the collection looked very summery, so I chose the leaves on blue and the leaves on white as the focal prints. I am a very symmetrical person and liked the leaves on blue as the border print better than the leaves on white.

Q. Favorite fabric in the collection?
Michele: I like the leaves on blue best.

Q. Talk about the fabrics you paired with the main Calypso Frogs prints.
Michele: I used six different tonals from Marblehead and Marblehead Brights that would pull out the colors in the two focal fabrics as well as a white tonal for contrast.

Q. Tell us how you designed the block.
Michele: I played around with design ideas after being inspired by some modern quilts on Pinterest which featured bright colors with white.

Q. We love the flange! Why did you decide to add it?
Michele: This is a 3/8" finished dimensional border to add a little bit of zing, color and contrast to the quilt between the blocks, white border and outer border.

Q. What is your favorite part of the quilt?
Michele: I love the overall feeling of the quilt with its bright summer colors. People have told me that it is a happy quilt and makes them smile.

Q. How was the quilt machine quilted?

Michele: I like to machine quilt the quilt in the ditch in the seams between all the blocks and borders before I send it to my machine quilter, Kay Kimball, to "set" the quilt and to keep all the blocks and borders straight. Kay did what I call the "fancy stitching" with her Gamill and Statler. I needed her machine quilting to be simple so she quilted four hearts which make a flower in the center of each block and then a "loopy" stitch in the border. 

Find the kit for this project and learn more about Michele here.

See the entire Calypso Frogs collection here.

Find The Quilter magazine here.