We’re really proud of this one, and believe it or not, Indian Harvest is one of the first designs Colleen and I did together. It’s a rather long story, but we foolishly gave this design away many years ago and have been trying to get it back ever since – lesson learned! Anyway we got it back late last year and have been waiting with baited breath to see it published in Quilter’s World ever since. Our patience was rewarded when Elisa (the editor) told us we made the cover of the October issue!! If we could have picked one of our designs to be a cover girl, this one would have been the one. It’s one of our long term favorites, we loved designing it and think it will become a Toadusew classic - Indian Harvest kits are available in our store, while supplies last. There’s also another treat in store for you in the October issue of Quilters World – we’ve written our first article all about the trials and tribulations of the 1/4″ seam. Be sure to check out the October Issue of Quilter’s World!

Quilter's World Cover 2010

Indian Harvest photo provided courtesy of Quilter's World Magazine

As many of you know, us Toads live in Florida and July and August it gets pretty toasty down here. Being from the great white Canadian north I have to classify these kinds of temperatures and level of humidity as borderline offensive. As my native born friends savor the heat and other joys of an authentic deep south summer I retreat inside, crank up the AC and think of the cooler autumn months to come. Both Colleen and I love the Fall and seem to spend a lot of time in that season one way or another, either in theme or the colors we use when we design. Before we left for our annual trip to Market last year we put together some really neat ideas and sewed many of them up during the fall and winter.
Getting a preview from the magazines that these designs will be published in was a welcome reminder that Fall is on the horizon, as these designs will all be featured in October issues. For those of you thinking “Bah-humbug on Fall, summer has barely started!” just remember Fall is the warning bell for Christmas, and if you’re a quilter who boycotts store bought gifts, you’d best get cracking .
Here’s a preview of some Toadusew originals you’ll see in the October issues of your favorite magazines and some great ideas for an early start on (ee-gads!) Christmas….

“Eclipse” featured in  Quilter’s Newsletter October/November 2010

Click here to order your Eclipse Kit featuring the beautiful “Shades of the Season” collection from Robert Kaufman!  Be sure to visit the Quilters Newsletter Magazine website and get more information on the October issue and Eclipse Pattern!

“Harvest Traditions” featured in McCall’s Quilting October 2010

Be sure to visit the McCall’s quilting website and get more information on the October issue and Harvest Traditions Pattern!

"Harvest Traditions" photos provided courtesy of McCall's QuickQuick Quilts

As quilt designers, we’re really lucky as we get to see a lot of fabric and Robert Kaufman is always wonderful about giving us enough to experiment and play with.  Our motto has become “send us your directional, grand scale, circular medallions, spooky or odd” as creatively speaking this kind of fabric is the most fun to work with, you’ve got to crack some eggs to make an omelet and we love to cook!     Some designers can spin scraps into something magical, we’re the opposite and try to seek out prints and fabrics that will work well as a major design element of the quilt.  As a result the fabrics themselves end up doing a lot of the heavy lifting so the quilter doesn’t have to.

We check the fabric collections under development on the Kaufman website site at least once a month and fell in love with the Fan and Iris print from Grandeur as soon as they loaded on the screen.  That was in December of 2009.  We diligently stalked our fabric fairy at Kaufman until the fabric finally arrived in the studio early this spring.  It was worth the wait and we dropped everything to start egg cracking the minute we opened the box.  Working with these kinds of prints is a ton of fun and definitely one of our favorite types of projects.    Sometimes they can be challenging, but they never fail to get the creative juices flowing and always produce an amazing results like our recipe for easy, fancy, beautiful borders.

Recipe
(click here to download a print friendly version of recipe)

• 1 Bloomington Pattern or Kit by Toadusew
• Grandeur fabric from Robert Kaufman
• Basic quilting skills and supplies
• A weekend or two depending on the size of quilt

After your quilt center is sewn iron the fancy fan border print to insure it is completely free of wrinkles and creases and study the fabric so you understand the repeat of the print.  Open the fabric to its full width on a large work space or cutting surface.  Doing this in an area where you can work and see the entire piece of fabric makes the task easier and faster. Once you’ve identified where the repeat starts, clearly mark the same starting point of the repeat along the selvage edge.   It’s important that all the marks be made at the same point in the repeat on both selvage edges to insure the patterns will match when the strips are sewn together. Mark the same point along the center repeat as well.

Using a ruler, draw a line across the fabric connecting the three marks.  When all the lines have been marked, carefully cut the fabric into repeat segments along the marked lines.  If you are making the Lap size Bloomington Quilt: Cut 4 repeat segments.  If you are making the Queen Size Bloomington: Cut 6 repeat segments  Quilters making other sized quilts based on other patterns may need to adjust accordingly;  do this by calculating the number of 40″/42″ lengths of cut fan border segments required to surround the size of the quilt being made.

Fold  the selvage ends under and match the ends of two segments together.  Adjust the location of the fold until you are satisfied with the pattern match between the two ends.  Finger press a crease to mark the fold.   Using a ruler and pencil, mark a line along the fold on the wrong side of the fabric.   Trim away the excess material to a ¼” from the marked line.

Sew the ends together along the marked line and press the seam open to reduce bulk.  Repeat these steps, as needed, based on your size quilt.  If you are making the Lap Size Bloomington: Make 4 borders (2 segments each).  If you are making the Queen Size Bloomington: Make 4 borders (3 segments each) Quilters making other sized quilts based on other patterns may need to adjust accordingly; do this by calculating the number of 40″/42″ lengths of cut fan border segments required to surround the size of the quilt being made.

Once all the segments are joined into strips, carefully cut them in half as illustrated.    Each half will give a distinctly different repeat (A & B).

Fold each finished border strip in half and press a crease at the center point.  Fold and press a crease into the center of the sides, top and bottom of the quilt top.  Beginning with the left side, match and pin the center points of the border and quilt together.  Use additional pins to ease and hold the the pieces together as needed.    Sew the border to the quilt, trim the ends and press to the least amount of bulk.  Sew the remaining side, followed by the top and bottom in the same fashion.  

To achieve the same look as shown on the Bloomington Pattern Cover use repeat B, on the sides and repeat A on the top & bottom with all the fans facing “in” toward the center of the quilt.

We hope this inspires you to try some new and creative things with fabrics you might not normally consider using.   Be sure to check out the October issue of Quilter’s Newsletter Magazine for to see another wonderful Robert Kaufman Fabric doing some serious work in “Eclipse” a new Toadusew design.

Click here to download a handy reference  print friendly reference copy of this article.

Photography by McCall's Quick Quilts

We’re so glad everyone loved this design so much!  Special thanks, as always, to Beth Hayes for her impeccable taste and selecting Into Africa for McCall’s QuickQuilts and the great job her whole team does with every issue.  We’d been wanting to do something with animal skins for ages and will be looking for new collections and ideas now that we know many of you dig them as much as we do.  We had a riot designing the quilt and getting all the prints into just the right place.  It seems to take a considerable amount of time to get a quilt to look as though it was randomly “thrown” together with no thought at all right?  Martha was already nervous about sewing it perfectly, knowing that it was for a magazine, but trying to get all those pieces sewn together just as we had drawn it just about drove her bonkers!

We’re sad to say that we don’t have a scrap of these fabrics left to offer and won’t be able to get any more, so we have to discontinue the Into Africa kits.  We hate to disappoint so we’ve scouted out a couple of on-line quilt shops, listed below, that offer a great selection of animal prints, including many of that we used in our quilt and kits.

Downloadable Into Africa Shopping List

Texas Susannie’s‎  Tel: 817 743-1302‎

Happiness is Quilting Tel:  972 542 8839
If you find any more sources, please post a comment and share the wealth with other quilters on the prowl for those skins…. Happy Hunting!