Moda Candy in the Knickerbocker Kitchen

 

Moda is featuring a smaller precut called Moda Candy and asked the designers to come up with a pattern that makes use of these 2-1/2" squares.

 

I do reproduction fabrics so I thought about vintage quilts. I wanted to make use of the dark and light shading in the squares and feature the pink paisley on the top of the candy packs here.

 

I have an idea file and here are some of the

inspirations, all quilts made about 1910:

Nine Patches alternating with plain blocks.

Sashing with half square triangle blocks.

An ocean wave variation.

I thought the idea of a consistent square with a patterned sashing would be good.

 

 

I simplified the look and came up with a 50" square quilt.

See the PDF with the pattern for the above quilt by clicking here:

http://www.unitednotions.com/PSMC-Barbara%20Brachman.pdf

I figured out a 2-block design in

Electric Quilt.

If you alternate these two blocks, one with a dark square at top left and one with a light square

you get this look. When we drew these up before market last spring we had little time and I don't recall that I had any actual fabric.

 

 

 

 

 

 I use EQ to make these mockups. I create an EQ file devoted to each fabric collection I do. Once Moda sends me images of all the fabric in the collection I import them into my EQ fabric palette for that line. You can see it over on the right.

 

If you have never imported fabrics into your Fabric Libary in EQ you might try it. First create some jpg files with pictures of the fabric you want. I put all the files for a certain project in a file called say Metropolitan Fair. I create jpg files that are about 5 inches square at 72 dpi---small files.

 

Then go to your Fabric Library and import pictures by browsing through your computer. Highlight all the pictures in the file and click on Import.

 

I can try things out by shading the blocks I've drawn or imported from BlockBase.

 

 

After I sent in the design with its mockup I made up a fabric model. I used three packs of Moda Candy and came up with a rectangular quilt of six blocks. I had enough pieces of 2-1/2" candy left over to make an inner check border.

 

3 Packs of Moda Candy

a half a yard of pink for the centers

Cut 6 pink centers 6-1/2" square.

• Alternate the 2-1/2" squares around them to make blocks that finish to 10"
• Add an inner border of more checks. The quilt above will finish to 24" wide by 34" long.

 

In the original design I mocked up the rainbow stripe border

 

 

 but when I made it up in fabric I used the larger stripe.

 

These stripes run across the yardage, perpendicular to the side selvages and I could get just enough out of that width of fabric to miter the border.

 

  

 

The finished quilt is 30" x 40".

 

3/4 of a yard of horizontal stripe for the border

• 2 border strips 6-1/2" x 40-1/2"
• 2 border strips 6-1/2" x 30-1/2"

 

Now I have to quilt it.

 

Two men and an "old-fashioned" quilt

 

I called it Knickerbocker Kitchen after a feature at the 1864 Metropolitan Fair. All the Fairs had "old-fashioned kitchens" in which people in "old-fashioned" dress demonstrated cooking over an open fire and spinning yarn. Nostalgia was popular even back then. In Boston they called it the New England Kitchen, in New York the Knickerbocker Kitchen.  The men above at the Brooklyn Fair in 1864 seem to have gotten carried away.

The open fire on the right at the Knickerbocker

Kitchen at the Metropolitan Fair

Author Washington Irving created the imaginary Diedrich Knickerbocker who came to represent the colonial New Yorker of Dutch descent.

See more about the Knickerbocker Kitchens here.
http://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2012/05/virtual-booth-at-quilt-market.html