Free pattern day! Red and White Quilts (part two)

Red-and-white quilts are classic favorites, and there are dozens of FREE patterns to enjoy! Note: This post has been updated. To view and download these patterns, CLICK HERE for the updated post. (For Part 1 of red-and-white quilts, click here.)

Please check out our E-Bay shop for great bargains on patterns and vintage collectibles. For continuous free quilt patterns, please visit us on Twitter.

Image credits:  The photo montage is the property of Quilt Inspiration. If any links are broken, we'd love to know; email us at quiltinspiration {at} gmail {dot} com.

Free pattern day! Red and white quilts (part 1)

Today we're featuring free patterns for sparkling Red and White quilts!  (For Part 2 of this series, CLICK HERE.) NOTE:  This post has been UPDATED.  Please visit the newest Free Pattern Day for Red & White Quilts (CLICK HERE)!

p.s. Check out our E-Bay shop for great bargains on quilt patterns and collectible items !
For continuous free quilt patterns, please visit us on Twitter !

Image credits:  The montage on this page is the property of Quilt Inspiration. If any links are broken, we'd love to know; please email us at Quilt Inspiration, quiltinspiration {at} gmail {dot} com.

Free pattern day ! Denim quilts

Here are some wonderful FREE patterns for denim quilts, pillows and bags !   For even more inspiration, see our previous posts on quilts made from recycled blue jeans (part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4 and part 5).  To go to a pattern: Scroll down the page until you see the quilt you like, then click on the words "CLICK for PDF download" (or the hyperlinked website name) in the title above the quilt.

Note: Please check out our eBay shop for great bargains on quilt patterns, fabric, and unique vintage jewelry ! (We are Top-Rated Sellers ! )

Stripy Denim quilt, 50 x 65", free pattern at Art Gallery Fabrics (CLICK for PDF download)

Constellate quilt, free pattern at Art Gallery Fabrics (CLICK for PDF download)

Band Together Denim Tote Bag tutorial at Make It Coats (CLICK for PDF download)

American Flag Denim Quilt, free tutorial at Live Free Creative (CLICK for tutorial)

DIY Improvisational Denim Quilt tutorial at Sew DIY (CLICK for tutorial)

Indigo Tote Bag, free pattern by It's Sew Emma for Fat Quarter Shop (CLICK for PDF download)

Denim Log Cabin Pocket Pillow tutorial by Underground Crafter (CLICK for tutorial)

Denim Shopper Tote, free pattern at JoAnn Fabrics (CLICK for tutorial)

In My Pocket mini quilt tutorial by Christine Weld at The Quarter Inch blog (CLICK for tutorial); lap size quilt instructions at Moda Bakeshop (CLICK for PDF download)

The "pocket" block was designed to resemble the back pocket on a pair of jeans (or you could use actual jeans pockets!)

Medallion quilt, 60 x 75", free pattern at Marcus Fabrics (CLICK for PDF download)

Denim Nine Patch quilt tutorial by Angela Harkness for The Craft Cotton Company (CLICK for tutorial)

Denim Patchwork Quilt tutorial by Mollie Makes (CLICK for tutorial)

Ombre Denim Quilt Tutorial by Autumn at It's Always Autumn (CLICK for tutorial)

Denim Pinwheel Quilt tutorial by Corinne at Purl Soho (CLICK for tutorial)

Blue Jeans Quilt, free pattern by Leah Anderson at All People Quilt (CLICK for PDF download)

Simply Denim Quilt by Ashlee, based on the Simply Denim Quilt tutorial by Natalia Bonner and Kathleen Whiting at Piece N Quilt (CLICK for tutorial)

Make your Old Jeans Into a Quilt! tutorial by C Schwick at Instructables (CLICK for tutorial)

Denim Picnic Blanket Tutorial at Reading, Feeding and Greening (CLICK for tutorial) 

Upcycled quilt from denim and plaid clothing, tutorial at Marcias Crafty Sewing (CLICK for tutorial) 

Denim quilt tutorial at Den Syende Himmel (in Norwegian and English)(CLICK for Part 1, CLICK for Part 2, CLICK for Part 3, CLICK for Part 4 and CLICK for Part 5)

Scrappy Jean quilt tutorial at Grandparents Plus (CLICK for tutorial; this is a coverlet; there is no backing, batting or binding!) 

Levi Quilt by Ilene at the Tuesday Quilt Club based on the 10-Minute Blocks video tutorial by Suzanne McNeill  (the block takes 10 minutes, the video takes only 3 !)

Faux Cathedral Windows tutorial by Doreen Baros at equilters (CLICK for tutorial); background description by Doreen Baros at Sew Artfully Minded

Faux Cathedral Windows is an easy quilt-as-you-go technique that is also called circular patchwork, folded cottage windows, mock cathedral windows and cheater cathedral windows.  Here are more examples...

Circle Jeans Quilt by Jessica Levitt at Juicy Bits, inspired by the tutorial by Doreen Baros

Circle Jeans Quilt by K.M. Gabrysch

Ruffled Denim Pillow, free pattern at Fabric Editions (CLICK for PDF download)

Image credits:  This post was updated on October 1, 2024. All images are copyrighted by their owners.  Complete information including restrictions on use can be found at the websites provided in the links.  If any links are broken, we'd love to know about it; email us at quiltinspiration {at} gmail {dot} com.

Faux cathedral windows from denim jeans

Three weeks ago we wrote our first post about Jeans Therapy (quilts from recycled denim). Today we are finishing the series with a wonderful circle/square quilt by Lori Poyer.  This is a clever quilt-as-you-go technique that is perfect for turning old jeans into quilts! The circle/square design is also called circular patchwork, folded cottage windows, mock cathedral windows and cheater cathedral windows*.  The fun lies in the selection and arrangement of fabrics for the 'windows'. 

Denim circle/square quilt by Lori Poyer at Poyer's Page

Lori Poyer achieved just the right balance of light and dark fabrics, and we love the bright red accents which include bandannas, plaids and stripes (click on the photos to see the detail). Lori says: "This was a quilt that I created from a woman’s old jeans (and believe me it took a whole lotta jeans!) and pieces of shirts from her, her husband and her baby daughter. It fit a queen/king size bed. It was a lot of work, but I had fun doing it." She incorporated jeans pockets, embroidered bits and other embellishments in the quilt:

To make a faux cathedral windows quilt you first cut circles out of the denim and mark out a square within each circle. When you stitch two pieces together on the marked lines, the rounded edges of the circles become flaps. Insert a scrap of fabric in the 'window' (batting is optional), fold the flaps over the scraps, and stitch down the raw edges of the flaps, stitching through all the layers. In a post by Doreen Baros at equilters you can see a circle jeans quilt in progress (below). See the squares that are marked within the circles, and the way the pieces are sewn right sides together ?

To mark out the circles you can use a coffee can lid as Doreen Baros has done or a circle template as in the tutorial at Puppets and Props or an Olfa cutter as in the tutorial at A Passionate Quilter.  To see two more denim quilts made with faux windows, check out the denim-and-fleece quilt at Burdastyle and the Care Bears denim quilt at Heritage Scraps.  Finally, here is a how-to video by Penny Halgren (9 min) who uses a quarter-circle template:

Image credits:  The images of Lori Poyer's quilt are shown with her generous permission. In addition to quilting, Lori provides web design services; for more information visit Poyer's page.
*In mock cathedral windows and cheater cathedral windows, two fabric circles are sewn right sides together and then turned right-side-out in order to avoid raw edges. In denim cathedral windows the edges are left raw, then stitched down with a zig zag stitch or straight stitch.

Pacific International Quilt Festival Part 3

Time for Part 3 of the Pacific International Quilt Festival !  All the quilts we saw were absolutely gorgeous. Let us know which ones are your favorites. We really enjoy reading your comments !

Croton Chorus, 36 x36 by Dee Goodrich, Fort Bragg, California

Dee describes her lovely creation by saying,  " I have a 2005 calendar from Hawaii with the most beautiful quilts. "Croton Chorus" is my favorite, designed by Dianna Grundhauser. I made my own paper piecing patterns and used embroidery floss in the bobbin to create veins, so I had to work off the backside of each leaf."  The careful selection of vivid bali fabrics in vibrant jewel tones, along with superb piecing and quilting is most impressive in this stunning work.

Super Star, 77 x 77, by Marilyn Badger, St. George, Utah

Blue ribbon winner for Best Machine Workmanship, Marilyn states, "This is an original design based on a paper-pieced Mariner's Star block from Claudia Myers' book "A Passion For Piecing."  Stars were interlocked and appliqued onto a pieced background. Smaller stars are pieced and appliqued at the corners. There are a total of 84 stars, including the quilted ones.  It is pieced using cottons and silks and quilted with 100 weight silk, silk sparkle, and polyester thread. The couching was done with Razzle-Dazzle. "

Close-Up of Super Star, by Marilyn Badger

Click on the photo above to "blow it up", and you will see the exquisite machine quilting in the background points of each star and in the circular border of each star. This quilting work displays a flawless focus on accuracy and artistry; the entire quilt is truly a show-stopper.  

Travels, 57 x 70", by Marlene King, Australia, at The Fabric Palette

Purple ribbon Viewers' Choice winner and Red Ribbon 2nd Place winner in the Innovative Quilts category, Marlene writes, "I decided to make a quilt using photos of my world travels. It took me a long while to come up with a format that wasn't boring. Finally, the idea of a film strip seemed the way to go."   Marlene's quilt is hand and machine appliqued, with precise, finely detailed landscape art scenes.  

Towards Infinity, 80.7 x 48.8", by Sally Scott, South Africa

Blue ribbon winner for Best Use of Color in an Innovative Quilt, the artist Sally Scott writes, "This work is about love, wholeness, unity, and peace. It refers to the infinite depths that lie within us and the infinite possibilities that lie without. "  It is made of hand-dyed string and cotton cloth, plus commercially dyed denim, corduroy, and beads. In each of the tiny squares in the center of the quilt, there is a beaded circle. Dozens of different colors and shapes of beads were used to decorate this work.

Fine Striped Tunics, 52 x 49.5", by Miriam Aronowitch,  Israel

Machine pieced and machine quilted with sparkling gold quilting thread, this quilt has both a rustic,  homespun and a glittering, elegant touch.  Miriam says, "This work describes the Spring appearance in Nature, as it was described by the 12th century famous Jewish Spanish poet, Rabbi Moshe Iben Ezra. He describes the fields as fine striped tunics.... Indeed, the fields are part of my work in the tunic and around the stripes. The blooming is a collage made partly from flowers drawn by me on cloth...and paper. 

Kona Color Waves ,60 x 58, by Angela Obeso, Santa Clara, California



Here is a striking contemporary design  that juxtaposes both pure, clear brights and toned, muted neutrals. Angela says, "This quilt is the result of the Modern Quilt Guild's Robert Kaufman Kona Solids Challenge. This is my first design and my first solid  [colors] only quilt. It is so different from the first traditional quilt that I made ten years ago."

Quilt Show Road Trip Part 2

Here's some more very lovely work from the Pacific International Quilt Festival, held October 13-16, 2011, in Santa Clara, California. Throughout this series, please feel free to leave us a comment and let us know which quilts are your favorites !

Celtic Cranes, 90 x 80, by Lesley Davies, United Kingdom

 
First place winner for "Best Use of Color in the Category of Traditional Quilts",  Celtic Cranes was so popular with the quilt fans that we couldn't get near enough to get a close-up.  It's a luxuriant, richly colored depiction of elegant cranes, bending towards the ground, their long necks curved around their legs. Quilter Lesley Davies used cyan blue and its true complementary color, yellow-orange, to create a show-stopper. It is machine appliqued and machine quilted.

Lesley notes, "I  have always loved Celtic design and have studied ancient illustrated books to search for inspiration for my quilts. The colours I have used are a favorite combination, and I wanted to use silks and gauzes to introduce different texture qualities with the cotton fabric."

Fruit and Feathers, 84 x 84", by Marie O'Kelley,  Seattle, Washington

Blue ribbon winner for "Best Hand Workmanship", Marie writes,  "Over time, I have stumbled into working in a series, one quilt's leftovers inspiring the next creation. An accumulation of green and purple scraps was just the size for appliqued leaves. .......Also on the table were the leftovers from a diamond-pieced background, perfect for a dogtooth border. Time has given me scraps, and they have been my inspiration."

Close-up of Fruit and Flowers by Marie O'Kelley

Marie adds, "The vines and banquets of berries attracted a few birds, (included in this center medallion as well as the inside border),  their plumage likewise shaded in purples and greens." 

We love all things purple, and this charming quilt, with its immaculate hand applique, really caught our eyes !

Desert Life,  36 x 48" by Hilda Koning-Bastiaan,  Danville, California

Speaking of birds, here is another beautiful quilt with a roadrunner as the focal point.  Hilda notes, "In the winter, I spend time in the desert. On my daily walks, I see....roadrunners, cactis, and succulents, my favorites. I used a pattern by Susan Cranshaw to put them in this quilt." 

Close-up of Desert Life, by Hilda Koning-Bastiaan

Hilda's landscape quilt is constructed of horizontal strips of fabric, with a different quilting pattern on each strip, which makes for very distinctive contrasts.  On top of that are appliqued the roadrunner succulents, and cacti whose flowers are attached, but not sewn down,  which gives a great three-dimensional look to this work. 

Grass Trees, 50 x 75, by Gloria Loughman , Victoria, Australia

Gloria Loughman is the author of Luminous Landscapes : Quilted Visions in Paint and Threads. She curated an exhibit within the quilt show titled "A Slice of Oz",  in which she showcases this quilt of hers above and several of her students' quilts.  Gloria notes that the quilts made by her and her students "reflect the colors, of the landscape and vegetation on this vast continent......a land of great contrasts."  The glowing gold and orange grass growing out of the trees is all done by machine quilting, or "thread painting" in which the quilting thread is used to construct actual objects that are part of the landscape. "Grass Trees" is a beautiful and very lifelike tribute to the scenic wonders of Gloria's home country.

Quilt Show Road Trip !

Welcome to the Pacific International Quilt Festival in California, the biggest quilt show on the west coast of the U.S.A.

This quilt show also includes a traveling exhibit of the winners of the World Quilt Show, held last August in New Hampshire, U.SA.  Join us for a look at some of the finest quilts on earth !

Please note:  We strictly obey all rules regarding photography in quilt shows. We take photos only where they are permitted, and we always provide attribution for each work. 

Mighty Departures, 88.6 x 68.9, by Sadako Negishi, Japan

Since we have recently featured a series of article on quilts made from recycled fabrics, we were especially captivated by this lovely work.  It is made from pieces of recycled materials donated to the quilter. She writes, "Japan suffered from an unexpected natural disaster ( the earthquake and tsunami of March 2011). We all need to quickly rise up and face the disaster. I place my hope in the Whooper Swans, flapping their wings in the splashing water. This expresses dreams, hopes, and courage."

Close-up of Mighty Departures by Sadako Negishi

Sadako used only recycled materials such as cotton-silk, pure silk, braids, beads, and netting.  Here you can see how she fashioned the white tulle netting into rounded blossoms and pleated triangular shapes, and appliqued it onto the top of the quilt. Underneath the tulle on the background, she has attached hundreds of white pearl beads.  For her magnificent work, Sadako won the blue ribbon first place award for "Best of Country", meaning that it was judged the best out of all quilts entered from Japan.

Once Loros de Panama,  72 x65, by Carol L. Smith, California

The Spanish name of this quilt translates to "Eleven Parrots of Panama." ( We believe that the quilter is referring to two additional parrots in the border fabric designed by Ellen Edith).   Carol says, "Imagine yourself in a garden in Panama. Through the windows in the garden wall, you can see brightly colored parrots enjoying the flowers and sunshine."  This quilter has used a unique setting of traditional attic windows blocks to showcase the very tropical-looking  parrots. Carol's work is machine-pieced, and machine quilted by herself.

Close-up of Once Loros de Panama by Carol L. Smith

 Molas are brightly colored, embroidered, and reverse- appliqued geometric designs made famous by the talented Kuna tribe, indigenous to Panama.  The molas used in this quilt  were made by unknown artists and purchased in Panama.  Traditionally, molas have used geometric non-objective designs, but in recent times, molas have incorporated objects of nature, such as animals, birds, flowers, and trees. 

Chevron Global AIDS Memorial Quilt 2009 by various unlisted artists

This 2009 album quilt is one of eleven AIDS quilts produced by the employees of Chevron, a large energy company, with offices around the world.  Employees from many different countries constructed these blocks in honor of their friends or loved ones who were lost to AIDS or HIV. On  this somber but very touching quilt, the description  reads, " Empowering individuals and communities to respond to HIV/ A.I.D.S.is a critical and fundamental part of respecting their human rights."  The blocks here come from Africa, Mexico,South American, Kazakhstan, and Southeast Asia.  Volunteers from Chevron's corporate headquarters in San Ramon, California, have carefully stitched the blocks together and constructed the red ribbon border.

Close-up of Chevron Global AIDS Memorial Quilt 2009

At the bottom of this beautiful appliqued block with trapunto elephants in silver fabric with gold accents,  you can see the names of those honored here.  As noted in the description, "The guardian elephants from Asia represent royalty, power, wisdom, and longevity. In eastern religious art, the elephant often represents Ganesha, the great Hindu god, which is celebrated in festivals yearly."