What's black and white...

What's black and white and red/read all over?

Yeah, old riddle...a newspaper. Or a sunburned zebra. 

But if you change the question just slightly: What's black and white and beautiful?

You get a very different answer. 

The "Junctures" quilt by Tony Jacobson:

"Junctures" by Tony Jacobson;
featured in Easy Quilts Winter 2013

 Tony used the Black & White collection and a simple quarter log cabin block to make this eye-catching contemporary quilt. And the best part? It was featured as a Web Bonus project in Easy Quilts so you can download the free pattern here! (The pattern also includes yardage and cutting options for different sizes, crib through queen.)

We asked Tony a few questions about his design and decision-making process. Check out his answers below:

Q. What are the challenges in working with a monochromatic palette?

Tony: You need to make sure that you work with prints with varying patterns,

values, and sizes. You want to have texture and movement in the quilt.

Q. Why did you choose the Black & White collection?

Tony: I've always found black and white quilts to be very striking. They can be neutral and work in a lot of different interiors. I design most of my quilts in black and white first to make sure that the design works well even without color. So working with black and white fabrics actually takes out a step.

Q. Why did you choose the quarter Log Cabin design? What made you put a

different color square in the outer frame corner?

Tony: I wanted to work with a single block design and see what would happen if you just twisted the block around. Adding the square in the outer frame solved a problem of how to handle the stripe pieces coming together and also provided a secondary block pattern when the block was twisted around.

Q. Can you talk about how you oriented the stripe fabric in the block?

Tony: The stripes needed to go the long way so that the movement would flow through the entire quilt. I think having them the short direction would have caused design to stop at the edge of the block and would stop the overall flow from one block to the next.

Q. Did you consider adding color to the quilt?

Tony: I did consider it and actually had one design that had several additional colors in it, but decided that I liked the texture and movement I was getting with the selection of fabrics from the Black & White collection without the additional colors.

Q. Did you try other layouts?

Tony: I actually did three different designs using this collection. In the end this was the design that was chosen bythe editorial group for use in the magazine. I'm still thinking that Iwill make at least one of the alternate designs to see how it looks in real life. My mother-in-law really likes my black-and-white quilts, so I'm sure she won't mind if I have an extra one to give to her.

Find the Black & White collection here.

Find Easy Quilts and download the free pattern for this quilt here.

Find the kit for Junctures here.