Today, our guest is Lori Allison from Allison Quilt Designs! A pattern designer and an apparent lover of Kaffe Fassett, her patterns are modern and contemporary, and they also bridge the gap for the young and novice quilter to try something new and trendy! She has just baked up a new batch of yummy patterns, and we're excited to show them on the Jolly Jabber today! You can find all of them at Fat Quarter Shop, and be on the lookout for a new kit using one of her designs debuting in our store soon!
I’m Lori Allison, from Wayzata, Minnesota, and mom to Pun’kins and foster doggie, Sam. I’m a former Family & Consumer Science teacher (Home Ec to many of us) and was teaching my high school students a little quilting, which is how I began writing contemporary patterns for novice quilters and Allison Quilt Designs. My students liked the idea of quilting, but they didn’t want to make ‘gramma quilts’ and neither did I!!
I often use traditional blocks – like the trip around the world block – but I make it bigger, apply some modern cutting and piecing techniques to make it fast and easy. I try to write fully illustrated instructions so that you can almost make the quilt by looking at the pictures. Of course, I recommend reading the instructions too!
Strip sets are cut, pieced and subcut into units, then assembled into a block. Each one makes in about 30 minutes and it’s great fun to see your block – like a little mini quilt – right away. It’s like pull-tabs, you can’t wait to see if the winner is under the next tab!
Cinnamon and Ginger has been a blockbuster pattern, which is kinda funny, because I designed it and it sat in my computer for six months. I thought the design wasn’t “pattern-worthy.” I needed a new pattern for Fall market so I made it up and LOVED it! The Kaffe Fassett fabrics so often make a pattern come alive. The interesting geometric of the Targets fabric and the wonderful warm red and gold Kaffe Fassett fabrics accented with brown makes it light up a family room. Besides it’s very easy to make and fun to choose your fabrics.
Each season I try to create a pattern that is super simple to make, and shows off fun, bright prints. “Fruit Cake” fills the bill! Take a couple layer cakes or 15 different 1/3 yard cuts 
(I chose 13 prints along the gold, red, & brown colorways and then two punch fabrics in turquoise) plus some solid fabrics for prairie points and start making big, giant half square triangles framed by bright, fun prairie points. It’s twin size so makes a great quilt for that graduate going off to dorm life. Doesn’t it just look like a warm, rich slice of fruit cake??
It’s almost always the fabric that inspires me to create a quilt. Sometimes I’ll just pick out a few fabrics that I like together, arrange them in front of me, look at the colors and scale of the fabric design and think, ‘what can I make with this?’
Labels: Guest Quilting Writers