digital pattern club

November club patterns

2011-11-02T22:13:00.000-07:00

Susan Campbell requested that I digitise Linda Steele’s quilting patterns for a customer version of Scottish Dance(scroll down to the third quilt); with Linda’s permission I made the files, Susan quilted her customer’s quilt, and it's spectacular!

The pattern is Linda Steele's award winning Scottish Dance ; the photos on this blog are of the quilt quilted by Susan Cambell. I digitised the designs from a small photo, so they may not be exactly the same as Linda's, but they are close.

Susan did a lot of fabulous free-hand on this as well, but there’s no reason our machines can’t add a fill behind these patterns. They don’t have really complex or indented edges, so I imagine they would look excellent as trapunto motifs too. The pattern set will be on my website for sale soon, if non-club members want it.

Our customers are wanting a quick turnaround now, as Christmas looms ever closer. With that in mind I’ve chosen speedy pantos for this month’s club; these are our Go-To pantos when we want something quick to stitch, yet looks fantastic on a wide range of tops.

I think Sassy is my most favourite pattern ever, it just gallops along; I’ve included a matching block and corner, so it can be used as a border as well.

Drift is very quick running, with great texture too, again there is a matching corner and block.

Eddy is a quick little P2P border plus matching panto, wider border and blocks; it will cover a lot of ground quickly.

These 5 pantos are from the Super Simple panto pack, and we use them again and again. They are great on small quilts, as they can be sized from 3-8" and don't overwhelm a small quilt. They provide great surface texture, and suit any sort of top.

Hunter

Saxon

The silly season is nearly here, I wish for easy pantos and sweet customers for all of us!

2011-01-12T22:18:00.000-08:00

Like other Australian quilters, I'm devastated by the images of the Queensland floods. I lived in that state for 26 years, and nearly every place I lived is now under water or in danger of being flooded. The little town of Forest Hill in the Lockyer valley, where I lived while I went to Ag College, has been completely evacuated; it's some of the richest farm land in Australia, and it's terrible to see it under water.

My family is in Rockhampton, all safe and well, but completely cut off. It will be a while before life goes back to normal.

The dreadful images of destruction inspired me to do something to contribute to the Relief Appeal. When I think of floods it brings the story of Noah to mind, so I designed a set of patterns based on a rainbow and dove, and they are for sale for $15. You get a border, corner and two blocks, plus a panto. They'd be nice for a Noah's ark quilt, or anything needing a nice formal pattern. You can pay by Paypal just by clicking on the button. I will donate all the proceeds to the flood appeal, and email the patterns once Paypal notifies me of the payment.

There are months of hard work ahead for all the people affected. My ex's family went through the Brisbane flood in 1974 and lost nearly everything; the government ended up giving them a payment of $151, which even then was laughable. Hopefully we'll raise enough money this time to help all those in need.

2011-01-02T20:45:00.000-08:00

I've had a little bit of free time over the Christmas break, which was lovely, but I didn't forget the club designs. It helped that I needed to get designs for customer quilts finalised, so those new designs go straight into the club for this month. I'll show some photos tomorrow of some of the designs quilted out.

Please click on the images to see them more clearly.

The panto designs range from old favourites, like Butterflie and Ferny, to new ones like Blossomtime. That's destined for an oriental quilt, and the trial stitchouts look great.

The Filigree Vine is a good way to fill a wide border without over-quilting it. It can go 9"wide easily, with great coverage, no blank bits. Skinny Feather is a nice simple border that looks good quilted, and is quick to stitch.

More simple borders and p2p designs, because you can never have too many of those. We often use the Dovetail as a filler around embroidery designs, just something to cut down the unquilted space. The Scrollz designs are great for the same thing, or sashes and little borders.

I really like frames just lately, and made up a few to have on hand. They can be used on placemats and small wallhangings, around embroidery blocks; pillows and totebags are another use, with a monogramme in the blank space to personlise it.

I've been playing around with the idea of tile designs for a while, and these are just the first few. The Bali tile design was made for a Log Cabin quilt, as the two halves of the design neatly matched the light/dark division of the block. Because the designs are P2P they are more continuous than a single design placed over each pieced block. I'm going to work on lots more of these, there are so many possiblities. And as you can see from the Papillion design, they make nice offset pantos too.

The design I had the most fun with is the Broken Feather set. It was so much fun to fit them to the embroidery quilt I was working on (still am working on it, it's a big one) and I enjoyed it a lot more than a continuous feather border. I could place the motifs to follow the wavy piecing of the borders, and there was no pressure about getting everything to fit exactly; the little space between the motifs doesn't have to be exact each time, so it was no problem if things were a little bit out of place.

The bobbin tension on the machine was another thing, necessitating the unpicking of several repeats; the culprit was a tiny ring of grime and lint around the post in the hook assembly. Once that was cleaned out, the tension was perfect. Thank heavens it was such a simple thing to fix.

December Club Designs

2010-12-04T13:33:00.001-08:00

The December designs are ready to go, lots of useful things this month. I've finally settled into my new premises, and there's been more designing and quilting going on around here, so life is nearly back to normal. One thing isn't though; because my building is heritage listed it's been a struggle to get a new phone connected. I'm still trying to get permission for that to happen, so I'm relying on mobile internet, which isn't all that reliable. So if I don't answer emails straight away, don't panic, my connection may have dropped out in bad weather and such. I'm still here, and I will get back to you.

The pattern set this month is based on the Double Plume pattern, which was the most popular panto as a printed pattern. However, it didn't translate to a digital format because it was two lines. After many requests from quilters who wanted to be able to use their old favourite (and some outright begging), I redesigned it to stitch as one line, so it's back in play. It makes a nice border too, and the block designs look lovely quilted out.

I'm always looking for simple geometric pantos, and Axel fits that description. Desert Flower is a good allover pattern with no imagery to conflict with the piecing of the quilt. Sometimes the quilting just needs to stay in the background and let the piecing and colours take over.

Windy Night I designed for a customer's 4 year old son; his quilt was covered in stars and spirals, so the quilting just picked up on that.

Spiral Leaf is an oldie from 2003 I think, never released as a digital pattern; it works perfectly with a couple of block designs from the Celtic pack that I shared in September's club. It's a simple panto to use too, either straight or offset.

Ditsy Heart is a simple little p2p border and corner that can be put together as a frame for stitcheries; I've included a square frame and a rectangular one already made.

More simple p2p patterns, because you can never have enough of those. The Echo Shell has been quilted on Civil War type quilts, as well as oriental styled ones, and looks great set either straight or offset.

The Lacis designs are good as pantos or borders, adding texture and interest with simple curves.

A simple way to quilt blocks set edge to edge is to place a design over each one and let a secondary design develop. All three of these patterns work well when used that way, or they're just pretty set with sashing. Rosette looks lovely on point as well.

Frames are always useful, and Feather Frames suit many quilts. The rectangular ones coould be used on placemats, with a name or initials in the centre.

The centre of the square ones can be filled with a block, or embroidery.

I hope you're all having a lovely time preparing for Christmas, and even if things are a bit rushed it's a good time to appreciate our families and our quilting. We have a new baby boy in our family, my great-nephew Logan. Christmas will be all the more special because of his arrival. I wish you all a wonderful holiday season.

You can join the club on my website here

or subscribe through Paypal for automatic billing each month.

File Format

Previous month's club set can be purchased from the website for $50 each.

November Club Designs

2010-11-03T13:03:00.000-07:00

October and November were very busy months for me, as I was moving my home and workshop to a new location. I hardly had time to do any designing, so some of these patterns are old ones that I never got round to releasing, and some are favourites that I thought I'd share.

The Shell Feather is one I've used on many quilts, it has just the right desnity of quilting and covers the space really well. Happy Hearts is a lighter pattern, and works well on quilts that don't need heavy quilting.

Lillies is just a pretty pattern; it's from the Sweet & Simple panto pack, designed by my sister Meredith England. I just fiddled with the basic design and made it a p2p for even more versatility.

Fractures and Meander4 are from my Pretty Simple panto pack, which isn't entirely digitised yet, still working on that. Both these designs ae great for simple quilting, where a recognisable pattern isn't necessary.

Fractures is great for modern quilts, or guy quilts, as it's just straight lines. Arabesque is an old favourite, gives a lovely texture to a border or as an overal pattern.

The geometric designs are ones I've used when I want to cross hatch little quilts completely. The Hatch p2p worked remarkably well on a small wholecloth;

I just set it up like a panto and trimmed out the areas around the designs. I will try and dig up the photos to show you, the points in subsequent rows lined up almost perfectly. The Maze design gives really even coverage, and again works really well on modern quilts.

And finally, because Christmas is upon us once again, some designs of Meredith's that are just right for the season. Her Christmas pack is great value, more than 40 designs, and many of them can be used on folk-art quilts as well, as they feature birds and angels. I've shared just a few of the designs from that pack in this month's club.

You can join the club on my website here

or subscribe through Paypal for automatic billing each month.

File Format

Previous month's club set can be purchased from the website for $50 each.

October Club Designs

2010-10-02T12:29:00.000-07:00

The October designs are a varied lot.

I quilted the Tilted Clamshell panto on a Nearly Insane quilt, and it turned out very well.

The overall design didn't compete with all the seams in the tiny blocks, and I added a p2p border from the August club called Pleat.

I designed a few spot motifs for a child's quilt, and also a cat design for a wedding quilt for two cat-lovers.

The Celtic circles are a nice way to completely fill a block, and they form a secondary design when place edge to edge across the quilt. the hatch frame is one I designed to go around a small machine embroidery design.

The others are ones from various quilts and wholecloths, and they work well wherever a more elaborate design is needed.
Everyone loves p2p designs, and these are firm favourites of mine. The Heart Feather has been used on many quilts, and it stitches out quickly, fills the space nicely and always looks good.

I designed the Petal and pumpkin seed p2p patterns for a customer, and she said they made short work of her borders.
The small motifs are ones I designed for a friend, who often needs a little motif to fill the centre of a feather wreath.

I also used them on a little sampler quilt of 4" blocks, sizing each design to fill the block entirely.

2010-09-17T16:15:00.000-07:00

Karen Wood sent me some wondeful pictures of quilts that she has quilted using the Kitchen Sink Club designs.

She wrote:

Here are some pics of a quilt that I did today with your Whatever panto. This design was perfect for this quilt. My customer always tells me, do whatever - you know what is best! I can hardly wait to tell her the name of the design.

I am attaching pictures of 2 quilts that I have used the French Forest pattern - I absolutely love these designs and my customers were very happy with their quilts.

Karen's quilting is beautiful, she did a lovely job on these two quilts.

I really like the way she used the Argyle P2P pattern, it looks great.

2010-09-17T15:35:00.000-07:00

September has been a steamroller of a month, way too many things to do in too little time. This post is two weeks late, apologies to everyone, but life got in the way.

This month includes some simple P2P patterns, they seem to be everybody's favourite. These three come from my Super Simple panto pack, which contains 24 simple designs, many of them able to be used as P2P patterns.

When I was choosing the patterns for this month's club I thought I should include some pantos suitable for guy quilts, so these three are ones that no guy will object to as too girly.

The one called Whatever was designed for my teenage son's quilt; when I aked what I should quilt on it he said 'Whatever', so that's what I named the design I came up with.

This set of Spiral Fillers are useful for those areas that just need some quilting, not anything spectacular, just something to hold them down. Some modern quilt have large areas that need to be stabilised, but the quilting just won't show on the busy fabric. These work really well.

And for those who need a fix of block patterns each month, here are the designs from my Celtic Blocks pattern pack.

I designed this ages ago, for hand-guided quilters, so the patterns aren't very complex. Sometimes that is just what's needed, some simple quilting. Anyway, I'm working on a Celtic pack for computerised machines, and the designs can be as complex as I like, so that's a lot more fun.

If you have been in the pattern club a while you may already have a couple of these blocks under different names.

I email out pdf catalogues each month; if you print them out as soon as you get them it makes finding the patterns so much easier. I try to keep all the pantos on one page, p2ps on another, blocks on another, etc. That way the sheets from different months can all be filed together in separate folders, so if you're looking for a p2p you just have to go through the folder of them till you find one that will work. In this computer driven age I often find it easier to look through an actual folder and pick my designs, and of course you can show them to customers easily too.

2010-08-21T14:05:00.000-07:00

Paypal had a bit of a glitch this month with the automatic payments, but all should be fixed now. Several people were not billed on the right date early in the month, and those payments finally processed on the 17th and 18th. Let me know if you have any queries about the late payment some of you experienced.

I have a couple of photos from club members who used this month's patterns.

Wilma Hurt wrote:
Love the August designs! The day I received it, I used Lovebirds on the attached quilt. You can't see the design very well, but I thought it was ideal for this quilt. I used A & E Linedrop Thread. I plan to use Oaken late next week. Thanks for such lovely pantos.

Kerri Youngdate wrote:
I attached a few pics of the Rowan double border used on a batik quilt I finished last week. The border turned out beautifully using superior rainbows, even with the busy batik.

And Mereth used Oaken on a lovely randomly pieced green quilt, and it turned out beautifully. Sometimes patterns just seem made for a particular quilt, and Oaken compliments this perfectly.

I love seeing what people are doing with the designs, you are all a clever bunch.

2010-08-03T22:49:00.000-07:00

****I am migrating my site to another server, so it will be unavailable for a while; you can continue to sign up for the monthly club though this blog (see the Subscribe button at the end of the post).***

The August designs are done, including several pantos with an animal theme, a couple of P2P patterns, lots of wineglass patterns, some useful, simple borders and a block set. Click on the photos to see more detail.

The Lovebirds panto was designed for a friend, the full story is here

I've made several pantos with animals in them for specific projects, so I've included them all here; you never know when you might need one. The fish one is a nice open panto without too much detail, and quilts up really quickly.

The Oaken panto quilts up into a beautiful allover pattern with a swirling movement.

The Baptist Fan panto is one we use over and over, on traditional quilts as well as more modern ones. It's a great texture, and quilts up quickly as well.

I use these simple wineglass patterns a lot, and this set is useful for sashes, backgrounds, to place over whole blocks instead of ditch-stitching.

The Darra Set has an Art Deco feel, quite sophisticated. The frame can be used around a stitchery block, or a smaller block quilted in the middle. Ther block and triangles have a nice movement to them, to liven up plain areas.

The Pleat P2P design is a way of quickly adding parallel lines to a border; you can choose to have the curved connecting lines facing in towards the centre of the quilt, or out towards the edge. There is a corner supplied for each option.

I've included several simple borders as well, to add to the pattern library. When we need borders we often have to use simple ones to keep the quilting density even across the quilt top. We use these more than the elaborate borders.

The Plait border repeat looks very strange, but it fits together to form a perfect plaited border.

The Club costs just $30 a month through Paypal, and includes a free panto as a joining gift; just click on the button below and the payments will be deducted automatically each month. Make sure to choose the file format you require for your system. Each month's patterns can also be purchased as a set for $50. If you want to purchase any, just email me and I can send a Paypal invoice.

2010-07-04T05:23:00.000-07:00

The July patterns are ready, and this time I concentrated on Pantograph patterns. I've designed quite a few for specific customer quilts, and they aren't on the website yet, they are only available as club designs. I just don't have time right now to load individual designs onto the site, but once work slows down a bit that will happen. At the moment the club designs are just a really easy way for me to get designs out there quickly.

The pantos are a good mix of easy and complex;

some have blocks and borders with corners.

The sets of patterns have been very popular, so I included the Iris set here, which quilts up beautifully.

And borders that don't need separate corners are always welcome, so I've provided 2 here, Hawthorn and Rowan.

And then there are a couple of block patterns to add to the library; the Dahlia pattern can be stitched out at a large size, as it's rather complex. If you have a large centre square on point it will fill that nicely.

The grid patterns are useful if you want to fill a rectangle easily, things like small wallhangings and placemats etc. They stitch out in one continuous line, with no breaks or need to travel from one line of stitching to another. Just choose one to give you the density of quilting that you want, then resize it to fit your rectangle. It may not give a crosshatch with squares, but will distort into diamonds; this looks great anyway. Or you can place the desired grid over the rectangle you want to quilt, and trim off the excess; you'll have starts and stops this way, but you can preserve the 90 degree crosshatch.

29 pattern files this month, excellent value. You can join the club on my website here

or subscribe through Paypal for automatic billing each month.

And don't forget, the previous club sets are available for $50 each.

2010-06-14T07:52:00.000-07:00

Carol of Rocking Chair quilts sent me photos of a quilt she quilted using several of the June club designs.

Carol writes;

This was a lovely quilt before the quilting - but your designs really made it POP! I have used the following patterns on this one : Teardrop p2p, Teardrop p2p corner, Old Rose border, Old Rose Corner Tulip chain and Square Fan block motif.

Along with some freehand these designs really made this quilt sing - the 'simple line' style of your designs are what my customers love. They never stitch out too 'thready' on the quilt- and because of their clean lines they all can work together on one quilt so beautifully.

Keep up the wonderful work, I am thrilled to be a member of the Kitchen Sink Club

Sincerely,

Carol Detloff

Your freehand work is wonderful, Carol!

June Kitchen Sink Pattern

2010-06-01T20:18:00.000-07:00

There are 43 pattern files in the June Kitchen Sink club.

You can join the club here; you receive a free panto as a gift for joining. When you complete the order on the website it will ask you why you bought the patterns, and how you arrived at the site; just write in there the panto of your choice, and I will send it with the pattern files.

Patterns are sent out automatically each month. The patterns for April and May are now available as a set for $50 each. Remember, if you stay a member of the club for 12 months you will earn 5 free pantos of your choice.

Click on the pictures to see more details.

I've included quite a few sashing designs this month, as those little spaces can be tricky to fill.

I love being able to use p2p patterns for sashes, it's so easy to place the patterns horizontally or vertically.

The Argyl pattern is a p2p version of an old traditional design. You can use it p2p, or like a normal border pattern to place any number of repeats you need for the sash or border. If you place the patterns just in the sash areas a star effect occurs;

or run the patterns continuously horizontally, and just fill in the vertical spaces.

There are some wider motifs that fill sashing spaces nicely.

I've given multiple repeats of the Outline Scroll pattern, as sometimes I don't want to bother placing each individual repeat with the P2P function. All of the multiple repeat patterns are still p2p patterns, they just stitch several repeats of the pattern at once. This works well when the edges of the area are fairly straight anyway. Or just use the multiple repeats to fill up a whole sash at once.

The centre designs fill up the space in Double Wedding Ring quilts nicely, and they can fit in the spaces around circular pieced blocks.

We often quilt a design over a pieced block, instead of ditch-stitching. These simple block designs work well for that purpose.

These little borders go together simply, it's not hard to line them up with the corners.

They stitch out nicely as small borders, or can go into larger areas if a simple design is needed.

The Trailing Fern set combines to give patterns for many areas of the quilt.

The half and quarter versions of the block design can be placed around the edges of a quilt to form a frame.

We've used this to fill in the spaces around a Dresden Plate, and it worked beautifully.

I'll post some customer photos in another post, so you can see the designs used on actual quilts. I would love to receive any photos of your quilts too. My email address in listed on my blogger profile.

2010-05-11T04:54:00.000-07:00

Lyn King, of Scribbly Gum Quilting, sent me an email yesterday and attached a photo of a quilt she'd just finished.

Hi Keryn,

I have just completed a wholecloth for my son ( had to do the quilt in a hurry so piecing was out) in flannette and I used the designs from the May Club.

The quilt measured 84"x 84" and took 6 hours to quilt.. I was pleased with the result and have attached a photo. Regards, Lyn.

The background of the wholecloth is the Celtic Scroll panto, which is an all-time favourite for guy's quilts. Great texture and no girly stuff to object to.

2010-05-10T05:43:00.000-07:00

Carol Detloff of Rocking Chair Quilts sent me these photos of a quilt she quilted using the May Club designs. She wrote;

"Hi Keryn,

I have attached some photos of a quilt with your designs on it,

I had some fun with a few of the May club designs. I used the fan p2p, the Uneven Feather Border and Corner on this little quilt with 30's reproduction fabrics.

This quilt had some fullness issues in the setting triangles as well as the narrow outer green border,

your designs aided my efforts to tame that fullness, along with some faux trapunto to help your quilting motifs stand out. "

I love what Carol has done, the quilt looks fabulous. I love how she used that triangle fan around the corner blocks, that's a great idea.

I love seeing examples of my designs stitched out, it's so good to know that people are finding them useful! I have a lovely wholecloth to show you tomorrow.

2010-05-05T05:46:00.000-07:00

There are a lot of designs in the May Club; 52 in fact, which is awfully good value for $30. And new members get their choice of panto as a freebie for joining. Just mention the panto you'd like in the Comments section when ordering.

You can join the club here; patterns are sent out automatically each month. The patterns for April are now available as a set for $50. Remember, if you stay a member of the club for 12 months you will earn 5 free pantos of your choice.

I concentrated on triangles and P2P patterns this time. It can be hard to find small, simple designs for triangles, and the ones I have included are suitable for most sizes of setting triangles.

The ones that are just lines or circles seem to go with any sort of quilt theme, so they are especially useful.

And even more useful are P2P triangle designs, so easy to place them with just 2 clicks.

I use P2P all the time, it's such an easy way to place a border and corner. See that Simple Swag pattern below? The little connecting lines along the base of the pattern are supposed to go in the binding area of a border, so they disappear when the quilt is quilted.

The Diamond P2P is an interesting pattern; if you make the height slightly less that the diagonal measurement of a setting square you can place it in alternate blocks by clicking two opposite corners.

And you can click across the quilt and fill in several rows at once. I used a plain curve as a P2P in the pieced squares, and then added the Diamond in the setting squares; it makes a great overall pattern.

I used the 16 Petal block design on an 1800's reproduction quilt; I didn't want to ditch stitch the blocks, so I used this pattern over 2 blocks and 2 setting squares.

I love how the back looks like wineglass quilting patterns.

Here are a few borders I've used several times. They aren't very complicated, and it's easy to fit the corners onto them.

And the Victorian Shell panto is easy to place, and gives a complex shell effect.

The French Forest set of designs are from one of my earliest pattern packs; I'm gradually getting them tidied up and released.

These designs are flowing and balanced; there's a simple block, triangle and border, and a more complex one as well. There's sure to be something in this set that will suit.

Kitchen Sink Pattern Club, April

2010-04-11T20:08:00.001-07:00

Hi all, I'm launching a monthly pattern club, I'm calling it the Kitchen Sink club; $30 a month, for at least15 designs, and they will be all sorts, everything includuing the kitchen sink. All the pattens shown in this post are in the April club set. Click on the photos to see more details.

cone p2p border

I create lots of designs each month for our customer quilts, and I rarely get time to put them all up on the website individually, so this is a way to get them out there with the minimum effort on my part.

Block designs, triangle fillers, lots of P2P patterns, which I use wherever possible, as it's so easy to make borders that way. Also some more formal borders, with corners and some with matching block sets.

Many of the patterns aren't really dense, heavy quilting, as our customers mostly want more open designs. That's a good thing, because these designs stitch out quickly, yet fill the area nicely. But there will be some intricate patterns too, depending on what I design that month. I will post photos where I can, depending on the customers permission, and also provide suggestions of different applications for patterns that have more than one use.

These designs will eventually go on the site for prices between $10 and $40 each, so this is a chance to get the designs early, and much, much cheaper.

If you stay a member of the club for a whole year I will send you 5 pantos of your choice. You can stop the club at any time, but it will need 12 continuous months to earn the free pantos.

These won't be available as an instant download just yet, I will email the patterns. Payment will be through credit card or Paypal. If you have troubles with the credit card payment on the site ( it's temperamental, I'm working on the new site but the instant download is not ready yet) you can always ring through the details; my number is

08 8636 3029 (Australia only).

I will send out the files in the first week of each month automatically, and either debit your card, or send a Paypal invoice.

For anyone who joins now during this trial period, I'll send a free panto of your choice.

The Feather Wreath Plus block worked really well on this quilt of simple Chain blocks.

This pattern uses one of my favourite tricks when quilting an odd shape. If you place the largest circle, or square on point, in the odd shape then all you have to do is find a pattern to fill up the square or circle. This has a few P2P curves aloing the edges of the blocks to fill the areas completely.

Intelliquilter files will be supplied as.iqp files.
Statler files will be supplied as .qli files
Compuquilter files will be supplied as .dxf files

If you would like to join the pattern club, please visit the website, or give me a call. If you have ideas for patterns that you would like to see here, just email me.