Thank you dear readers for participating and following the ZEN CHIC INSPIRED Blog Hop. I could learn so much from your comments, who gave me ideas how to make it easier for you to design your own quilt or to find more confidence in color choices.

Of course I'd like to give  something to everyone, but - well, the book goes to HILDY who commented

The hardest thing for me is to find the perfect fabric for the pattern I have in mind and the other way around. Sometimes I have a great fabric but not the right pattern. And then the actual quilting part ... not so easy on a domestic machine and I don't know really about longarm quilters in Germany. Would love to win your book and have a great time at quiltcon.

Hildy, I will contact you.
For all of you who would like to have another chance to win: tomorrow we'll have a mutual giveaway together with Martingale,  Moda and Zen Chic on Instagram and Facebook. There are another three books to win. Check it out and take your chance.

All good things come to an end... and this ZEN CHIC INSPIRED Blog Hop ends with a giveaway, yay!

If you have followed the other bloggers for the last couple of days, you might be as well inspired as I was seeing them bringing the book to action! I saw the Moda Palette Builder used to create color schemes for the personal rooms and I loved all these results. It's really fun to see others pick up the idea to get colors and inspiration from a room and develop a concept.

You can read the former blog entries here

14. Februar —> Judith of September’s Quiltdelight

15. Februar —> Julia of fine fabric

16. Februar —> Amy Smart of Diary of a Quilter

17. Februar —> Barbara Borchert of Das Mach ich Nachts

18. Februar —> Grete von Stoffsalat

And you know what? Next week, QuiltCon, the largest modern quilting show of its kind, will be in Savannah, GA. There’ll be hundreds of modern quilts, dozens of lectures and workshops by leading modern quilters, tons of things to buy, and I’ll be there too! I'm so excited!

From 23-26 February, I’ll be at the Moda booth (#523), so if you’re attending, please pop by and say hello!

All the quilts from my new book ‘Zen Chic Inspired’ will be on display, plus you can purchase copies of the book from the booth and get them signed too. Limited copies are available so be quick if you want one!

And I'm totally eager to talk to you:  I’ll be presenting some slideshows where I’ll share my design process used for quilts featured in the book. It goes like this:

During the presentation, I will go through a given room scenario, 


develop a color scheme,

and design elements, consider given facts like project size 

and reveal my developed quilt design (no, not on the blog.... I have to leave this surprise for QuiltCon).

After the presentation I will work with a volunteer and guide them through the same steps with a new scenario.

My slideshow presentations will last 30 minutes (10 minute presentation and 20 minute volunteer demo) and are on Thursday 23rd, Friday 24th and Saturday 25th at 10.30am and 3.00pm each day.

They are free to attend and each session works with a different scenario, so you can stop by each time and learn something new.

In addition I will have a book signing with a modern shop: It's Intown Quilter's Fabric and Yarn at booth #348 and I will be there to sign your book on Thursday, 23rd, 1.00pm.

I hope you will be there and we can say hi!

But now for the giveaway: You can win a signed copy of my book, of course, what else!

All I'd like you to ask is to forward this blogpost to a quilt friend who might be also interested. In the comment let me know what you most struggle with when you make an own quilt design (or do you ever?) and leave your email address, so I can contact you.

That's for today, thanks!
Brigitte

MerkenMerken

Zen Chic Inspired Blog Hop

Here I can hold it in hands: Zen Chic Inspired, my first book about modern quilting, especially about how to design a modern quilt just arrived in the mail! Thanks to the great team of Martingale (graphic designer and editors) my vision came true and is now a real physical book to stroll through. A lot of people supported this book: Moda sponsored the Bella Solids used for all the quilts, and a couple of friends stepped in and helped sewing some quilt tops.
You can already read a bit about the book here and here
Can't wait to tell you more about my new book, so I organized a little blog hop. You know, I am  German, so the blog hop has also German bloggers on board (writing in German, obviously).
I asked all of them to give just her genuine impression and I will be the last one in this blog hop, to give my 2 cents.

So if you want to follow the tour or get to know other peoples opinion about the book, here is our blog hop schedule

14. Februar —> Judith of September’s Quiltdelight

15. Februar —> Julia of Fine Fabrics

16. Februar —> Amy Smart of Diary of a Quilter

17. Februar —> Barbara Borchert of Das Mach ich Nachts

18. Februar —> Grete von Stoffsalat

19. Februar —> Brigitte, Zen Chic

On my date, the 19th of February, I will have a giveaway for a signed copy of the book! So stay tuned.

My Splendid Sampler Block - Under the Apple-Tree

Since this fun project is around already all year long, chances are you’ve heard of the Splendid Sampler. If not, just a couple of words to introduce you in all that fun!

The Splendid Sampler is a year-long quilt-along hosted by Pat Sloan and Jane Davidson. There are nearly countless designers taking part in the fun and sewing with the Splendid community. Each week you get 2 new 6” x 6” quilt blocks. You can read more about the Splendid Sampler here as well as visit the Splendid Sampler Facebook Group to get all the blocks and exchange ideas and inspiration.

The new block for today is designed by me! What a fun it was to make it!

The name of this block is "Under the Apple-Tree", you can download the pattern here.

When my hobby of doing patchwork grew more and more in something I could maybe someday make a living of, I had a cosy dream: I would invite some fellow quilters during Summertime into my garden and we would sit under the apple-tree, have a sewing retreat full of laughter and fun and enjoy the magic of a Summer-weekend. Today I really live my dream of a full time career as a quilter, and the word apple became even more importance to me: I sit in front of my apple each day to create all my designs and ideas. 

The block has all the colors which you will find in an apple and it looks like there are eight yummy slices.

It must also be fun, to hand-sew under an apple-tree, comfortably seated in a Summer chair, protected from the heat by the shadow of the leaves. I have to imagine this scenario, since I actually made this block already in last November, more during a rainy and cold weather, not the perfect apple-tree-under time (although perfect for a glass of tea and some cookies on the couch). I mention this, because... when I made this block one year ago, I must have been so absorbed in the cosiness of hand stitching that I forgot to take pictures of each single step. Or ... I took them, but then they disappeared in the overwhelming file load of my computer storage. Anyhow - I only found pictures from the finished block. But I guess most of you will know, how to do English Paper Piecing or can find a youtube tutorial. Sue Daley has an excellent series of youtube tutorials about EPP.

What I love about the Apple-Tree Block are the unusual shapes for the EPP-technique. Most of us have done hexagons, at least one time. But this block hast a lot of new shapes to play with. And they will be perfect for fussy cutting, playing with color options. Can't wait to see what you are doing with yours!

(BTW: be careful, the white triangles of the sewn block look symmetrical, but they are not; one of the long sides is slightly longer than the other. So mark them or cut them from paper with different colored sides so you don't accidentally mix them up. On your paper sheet you can recognize them by different colors, white and light grey. Also the both triangle shapes for the corner squares are different, but look so similar that they could be confused. So mark every shape clearly to not get in trouble. Refer to the colors on your pattern sheet).

Imagine you and a quiltfriend, perhaps me - under this apple-tree, with a hand stitching project, a fresh drink and a piece of apple pie. Chatting about the last quilt ideas, fabric collections and upcoming retreats. Should we call this quilter's heaven? :-)

Some Insights and tips about solids

If you know me for a while, you might have realized that I often have some solids in my quilt patterns. Moda asked me about my tips and my experiences how to design a quilt with solids and here is my interview...

TRUE BLUE - Zen Chic Collection for Quilt Market Houston 2016

Quilt Market Houston 2016 was a blast! We had lots of fun with Moda's theme of this season "What's your super power?" The complete Moda booth was decorated with comic sketches and super hero figures. And - it won an award for the cool idea!

We were nearly 30 designers attending the show and we shared a designer area where everybody had their little corner. This is my space.

(Hint, hint: the dress I'm wearing shows one of my newest fabrics from the TRUE BLUE collection).

There are so many new cute, beautiful collection from the other Moda Designers out, that it would be too much to share these all in one post, but you will find all the newest things in the Market catalogue of Moda.

My inspiration for the fall collection was to find something in the Denim style, a blue range of fabrics which pairs well with your favorite pair of jeans.

The color range goes from off white over glacier blue, steel gray, royal blue and dark blue to nearly black. The wall quilt on the booth shows how great the contrast of the different hues work in quilts.

And all these precuts…

It's right: You can never have enough fabric and the Charm Packs and Layer Cakes inspired me for my new pattern series going with the collection.

You can find all my patterns in a PDF-downloadable version here.

I hope you like the colors and fabrics as much as I enjoyed designing them! You are always fueling my flame for new ideas and I am happy and grateful that you appreciate my work and welcome my creativity!

Modern Background Luster fabric collection by Zen Chic has hit stores!

Just in time to sew any festive little projects for Christmas LUSTER has arrived in stores. The glamorous sister of Modern Backgrounds PAPER and INK reminds us that life should have lots of sparkling moments.

Although we think of golden accents in connection of decorating for holiday, there are much more times in life when we want to add some glimmer and glamour.

Think for example of a wedding!

And imagine the wonderful quilt you can give the young couple sewn with the whites, eggshells and fogs of Modern Background LUSTER

The motto of this fabric line is: 

Life should not only be lived it should be celebrated!

So let's celebrate together!

Go to your local quilt shop and ask for LUSTER or simple shop online for the new fancy modern glamour!

And to give you some ideas, what to do with the fabrics, even if there is no wedding on your schedule or holidays are already over…

here are some of my new patterns.

London Night using 1 Jelly Roll

Play and Hint of Luster using 1 Charmpack each

Right now I'm offering a discount for multiple pattern purchases, so if you want to benefit from it (ends Sunday 23rd, 12pm) read more on my newsletter archive and take advantage!

I had a lot of fun creating this line, and I hope, you will like it too!