Modern Quilt Month: Minimalist Design! (2)

Minimalism refers to a design approach that emphasizes simplicity, clean lines, and a restrained aesthetic. Within the Modern Quilt Guild, it has its own category for shows! We're honoring modern quilts for the month of July, starting with minimalist designs.

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

Klee for a Day, 37" square, by Karen Duling (Michigan) @karenbduling

Paul Klee's inspiring work "Fire in the Evening" influenced the use of color and line in this quilt.  Karen Duling explains, "My version started by sewing together a long-held collection of medium and dark value strips.  Strips were arranged using lessons learned by studying Klee's work.  Textile artist Rosalie Dace opened my eyes to Klee's work in her virtual class "The Thinking Eye." Klee for a Day is machine quilted in a grid using silk thread, adding subtle texture to the minimalist design.

Off Kilter by Margo Yang (California) @Quiltmagic

  

This quilt with its creative use of reclaimed materials and its minimalist design conveys a heartfelt message: "Distractions in life happen, They can throw your world into chaos. That's when you hold on to things that anchor you, be it faith in God, family, and friends. These distractions will be but a short while and then life goes on and everything will be okay at the end. This quilt is made of old denim, garment top and painter's drop cloth as background. It reminds me that life is not perfect but beautiful." For more about Off Kilter see this post by Margo Yang.

 

Extreme Dopamine by Jenn Burt (North Carolina) @jenngeorgeburt  

Dopamine is a chemical messenger that works in the brain and is associated with pleasurable reward and motivation. This quilt is titled "Extreme Dopamine" because of the way the artist felt about creating this piece: "It was joy-inducing from the design process to the color scheme selection, to the embracing of a newly-found love of piecing inset organic shapes, to the time devoted to hand quilting." 

We found our eyes moving from the subtle curves and contrasts in the background, to the intense colors and quilting within the circles, shown below.

Image credits: Photos were taken by Quilt Inspiration at the 2025 QuiltCon show in Phoenix, Arizona.

Transparency Quilt Challenge: Sunshine Amidst Rain

Transparency is a hot trend in quilting! The challenge is to choose opaque fabrics to create the illusion of transparency. The American Patchwork and Quilting Transparency Challenge produced some incredible quilts by artists around the world. We hope you enjoy our photos!

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

Sunshine Amidst Rain by Sarah Wigden (Pennsylvania) @misswigglymakes

There are so many things to love about this quilt, including Sarah Wigden's expert use of color and value along with her hand quilting.  Sarah says that the design for this quilt had been on her mind for a couple of years and she decided it was time to make it.  While making it, she recognized rain/umbrellas in the design but also sunshine motifs in the quilting. 

Combining the elements of umbrellas/rain along with sunshine made Sarah think of trying to find the sunshine moments amids the rainstorms of life. "Quilting is one of those spots of sunshine for me." We love the hand quilting which adds a soft texture and shadows to the surface of the quilt.

Image credits: Photos were taken by Quilt Inspiration at the 2025 QuiltCon show in Phoenix, Arizona. 

Best Use of Color (2)

The recent QuiltCon show was filled with beautifully designed and made quilts. "Best Use of Color" was not a specific entry category, but these beauties stood out - not only for design and technique, but also for their color.  (For PART 1 of this series, CLICK HERE!)

Note: Please check out our eBay shop for great bargains on jewelry, patterns, and collectibles!

Blooming Star by Daphné Parthoens (Belgium) @octopurse 

Blooming Star is made out of 6144 half-inch diamonds (!) arranged in a flower-like shape. It is beautifully machine pieced and hand quilted! Its bold and contrasting colors form a harmonious gradient and give the quilt the impression of being three-dimensional.  Daphne explains that the quilt is an ode to nature and its everlasting beauty. All the little hand quilted pieces are meant to represent seeds planted in the ground to later bloom into luxurious flowers.

 The 95 by Vicki Ruebel (Nevada) @OrchidOwlQuilts (Additional piecer: Judy Dale).  

The cool analogous color scheme provides a lovely backdrop for the expert longarm quilting on this piece. Vicki Ruebel says, "This quilt was a team effort between my mom and I.  I designed the quilt in EQ8, my mom pieced it and I quilted it.  We used vinyl to create the circles.  I explored using soft and stable as the base layer of batting with wool on top to pop the quiltng.  The intricate [longarm]quilting is my favorite part of this quilt."

The Pointy Beast by Susan Braverman (Texas) @wildpoppyquilts  

Winner of 1st Place in the Modern Traditionalism category, The Pointy Beast updates the classic New York Beauty block with large scale and striking high-contrast colors.  It says "look at me" from across the room.  Dense grid quilting anchors the design's structured form, as shown below.  A variety of thread colors were used to create nuanced value shifts throughout.

 Image credits: Photos were taken by Quilt Inspiration at the 2025 QuiltCon show in Phoenix, Arizona.

Floral Album Quilts: Celebrating the Garden!

Album quilts, which show a variety of blocks, are on almost everyone's list of favorite quilt patterns.  They provide great visual interest and are often a valuable source of inspiration for your next project. Perfect for spring, here are some floral album quilts we admired at a recent show!

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

90th Birthday Quilt, made and quilted by Robin Walton

This quilt is gorgeous done in soft hues and batik fabrics! Winner of an award for her hand quilting, Robin Walton says: "The quilt was made for my mother-in-law in her favorite colors: blue and white. Her many trips to Japan inspired me to use blocks published by Susan Briscoe [from the book, "Japanese Quilt Blocks to Mix and Match" by Susan Briscoe (2007).]  We admire Robin Walton's beautiful hand quilting as seen in the block below.

 Color Play with Circles, made and quilted by Janet Rupp  

This spectacular quilt has beautiful wool applique blocks in a profusion of colors! Winner of an award for Exemplary Machine Applique, this quilt was inspired by Ericka Kaprow's book titled Everything's Blooming: 30 Floral Wool Applique Quilt Blocks.  Placing them on an off-white print allows the applique work to stand out. Check out the embroidery work which adds a lovely finishing touch.

Wild Artichokes by Christine Nelson, quilted by Barbara Logullo  

These blocks are perfectly proportioned.  The olive green hues remind us of a Renaissance work of art! This pieced and appliqued design is based on a pattern by Vicki Stratton called Wild Artichokes.

The quilter had fun using her creativity in quilting this piece: It's hard to see in photos, but the green quilted areas include dragonflies, beetles, spiders, bees, butterflies, flowers and other motifs!

 Circle of Posies On Point, made and quilted by Karen Kelter

Wreaths, tulips, hearts, and green leaves make up a garden of blocks. Karen Kelter says that these blocks were an option in a BOM program, circa 2007, at the Quilt Basket [a local shop].  "It was my first attempt at machine applique.  It took a while to choose a palette in which to present them.  It is so gratifying to get them out of my UFO pile." Here's a lovely block featuring a basket of red tulips:

Image credits: Photos were taken by Quilt Inspiration at the 2025 Tucson (Arizona) Quilters Guild show. 

The Works of Tara Faughnan (4)

Tara Faughnan is a quilter, teacher and pattern designer who began quilting in 2001. For many years she worked for companies such as Michael Miller Fabrics and Riley Blake, creating textile designs. Tara was the featured artist at this year's QuiltCon show, presented by the Modern Quilt Guild. It was fascinating to see her work in person! We hope you enjoy these photos.

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

Railyard (2022-24), 60" square, by Tara Faughnan

Different angles of the regular and irregular triangles create so much movement in this design! Tara says that she wanted to work with triangles that were non-uniform, but still had points.  "After a few attempts at free form piecing, I realized it was more work than fun, so I created foundations to piece this quilt." Railyard is machine pieced and hand quilted.

  Pineburr (2015), 52 x 54", by Tara Faughnan

Pine Burr quilts are constructed of folded triangles (prairie points) sewn side-by-side onto a foundation.  Tara says, "I have long been enamored with Pine Burr quilts (it's the official quilt of Alabama), and this is my second attempt at making one. This is such a heavy quilt, that I had to make it in pieces and attach them to a backing fabric as I went, not being able to plan or foresee the pattern beforehand, but designing it row by row." 

Beautiful solid colors were chosen for this quilt.  Each row was quilted down and the next row added on top, hiding the quilting on the front.  Made from cottons and poly blends, machine pieced and quilted.

Diamonds (2015), 59 x 69", by Tara Faughnan 

Tara says that Diamonds was started as a quick color study.  "Working intuitively, this was one of my early investigations into how shape informs color and value interaction." "I cut and arranged all the pieces over the course of a couple of days, and didn't make too many changes to the layout when I pieced it together.  If you look in the top center, you will see a "hole" where the values are close together. I purposely kept this in the quilt, as a beautiful reminder to respect the intuitive process of design, that there are no "mistakes" and that "balance" is overrated.  Machine pieced, hand and machine quilted.

Quilts made of triangles arranged in rows are also known as Thousand Pyramids.  Scroll down for a link to our Free Pattern Day!*

Hourglass #2 (2025), 60" square, by Tara Faughnan 

 

This quilt is infused with rich, dark hues.  Tara says, "I run a membership for 1/2 the year, and we play with curated (but limited) palettes each month. And every year when the membership closes for the season, I have a visceral desire to use all the colors, and use them with abandon.  I chose the Hourglass block to work with, as I love the structure of a simple repeated block, giving me room to play with color and value."  Hourglass was machine pieced and hand quilted.

*For two dozen FREE patterns for Thousand Pyramid quilts, CLICK HERE!

 

 Image credits: Photos of Tara Faughnan's quilts were taken by Quilt Inspiration at the 2025 QuiltCon show in Phoenix, Arizona.

The Works of Tara Faughnan (1)

Tara Faughnan was the featured artist at the 2025 QuiltCon show, presented by the Modern Quilt Guild. Tara is a quilter, teacher and pattern designer who began quilting in 2001. For many years she worked for Michael Miller Fabrics, Pottery Barn Kids and Riley Blake creating textile designs. It was fascinating to see her work in person! We hope you enjoy these photos.

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

Double Wedding Ring (2014-15), 78" square, by Tara Faughnan

This quilt was made entirely from scraps including cottons, linen blends, poly blends. It was pieced and quilted by hand. Tara Faughnan says, "I was inspired by a pair of amazing double wedding ring quilts by an unknown maker, in the collections of Bill Volckening and Roderick Kiracofe.  I wanted to hand piece this quilt as an homage to this woman, and in the process I fell in love with hand sewing, and the life that all the little imperfections bring to this quilt."  

Tara continues, "To say the making of this quilt transformed my practice is an understatement - I learned new ways to look at colors, and began my hand sewing and quilting journey here."

Bars (2015), 63" x 70", by Tara Faughnan

Simple in principle, but it's the choices and arrangment of colors and values that make this quilt so interesting.  Tara says, "My focus with this quilt was to play with the interaction of colors within a structured grid.  I was curious how shape and proportion informs color interaction."  Bars was machine pieced, hand and machine quilted. The hand quilting stitches add subtle interest to the composition.

Big Log Cabin 2 (2024), 66" square, by Tara Faughnan

 

Tara says, "This quilt is a dive into imbalance and color relationships.  I love to create quilts that keep the eye roving, trying and failing to find a pattern to follow.  The wonderful thing about log cabin quilts is there is a never-ending number of variations to play with!  Big Log Cabin 2 was machine pieced and hand quilted.

Here's the full description of the exhibit at the show.

Image credits: Photos were taken by Quilt Inspiration at the 2025 QuiltCon show in Phoenix, Arizona.

Exemplary Hand Quilting

We admired the beautiful hand quilting and applique work on this bed-size quilt. The scalloped edges add to the traditional charm.  Hand quilting is nearly a lost art, and every time we see it we contemplate the hours of work and care that going into the tiny, regular stitches.  This quilt is also special because it is a legacy left by one of the makers.

Also check out our E-Bay shop for great bargains on jewelry, patterns, and collectible items !
Please also follow us on Twitter.

The Country Love Quilt, made and quilted by Janet Stevenson & Joyce Parker

Winner of the Exemplary Hand Quilting award at a recent show, Janet Stevenson says: "My best friend and I made this classic queen size quilt (plus a pillow cover) during Covid. We hand-appliqued and hand-quilted from August 2020 to December 2021. Shortly after finishing it we lost Joyce to a long cancer battle. This is Joyce's legacy." 

 

Image credits: Photos were taken by Quilt Inspiration at the 2025 Tucson Quilters Guild show.