Brights | Louise Naples Quiltmaker

Matched Pair for a Matched Pair

26 02 2013

When my niece Meaghan gave birth to a set of identical twin girls, I came up with this color scheme, lively and bright. I used a pattern by Liz Porter, of Fons & Porter. The fabrics were a matched set of precut squares, transformed into “snowballs” by the addition of flipped yellow triangles in all four corners of each precut patch. The quilts are bordered in a dark pink floral, and backed with an allover pastel pink floral. Each “snowball” was quilted with a five petal flower. To enable Meaghan to tell the quilts apart, I just arranged the blocks in a different order.

Reverse side

On the design Wall

Shifting the patches for the second quilt.

4 Bright Colors for Babies

Portrait photo

“Snowball” closeup

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Categories : Basic Squares, Brights, Crib

Simple Symmetry

15 06 2012

At Paula Nadelstern’s all day workshop at City Quilter in NYC, I ventured into the world of art quilting. Using a bilaterally symmetrical fabric as the basis, (Paternista designed by Paula); fussy cutting identical squares; then cutting and rearranging them, enjoying the magic and surprise at the results, made this a fascinating class. The complex designs that resulted were far removed from the original “mother” fabric – kaleidoscopic ideas that resolve into tiles.

Portrait of completed quilt. All tile-style rows are cut from the same mother cloth

detail of one color band

Another color band detail

Pink band detail

Cut from the same cloth but oh how different

And yet another

Corner detail inner border cut from original mother fabric

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Categories : Basic Squares, Brights, Wall Hanging

“T” is for Tony – Tessellating Ts

14 06 2012

: 1 Tessellating T’s portrait

: 2 Tessellating T’s close-up

: 3 Tessellating T’s detail

: 4 Tessellating T’s on display

: 5 Tessellating T’s back

: 6 Back detail

: 7 Tessellating T’s back detail

I saw this pattern in several quilting books, and knew it would be perfect for my brother Tony. He is a technocrat and I knew he would like the interlocking tessellating pattern. I first selected many earth tone fabrics for the Ts, but thought it was too dull, so I added several primary jewel tones, and that brought it to life. The bold border of a black and tan zebra strip gave it the masculine feel I was seeking. I used the border fabric for the back as well with the addition of two vertical bands of triangles, for a two sided quilt.

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Categories : Basic Squares, Brights, Triangles, Twin

Victorian Placemats

13 06 2012

: Columns

: Four Placemats

: Reverse

: Triangles

My daughter Nikita has a Victorian home, and requested placemats for her dark blue dining room. I raided my extensive stash and came up with this luminous variety of blues, for two different pairs of mats, all with the same backing, giving her a variety of ways to use them. For all those tiny triangles, I used half-square triangle paper sheets to insure accurate sizing, and precise points.

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Categories : Basic Squares, Brights, Table Topper, Triangles

Giraffes for Martha Marie

13 06 2012

: 1 Overall

: Giraffes – field shot

: Giraffes close-up

: 4 Corner

: 5 Reverse

: 6 reverse – close-up

I made this quilt for my sister who is a collector of everything and anything giraffe. For years I was looking for a theme fabric that wasn’t too juvenile; and finally found this teal and black one. The coordinating batik in black with teal dots was a perfect partner for the focus fabric. On my design wall, the blocks seemed a little flat, so I added a gold and brown piping around the edges, which brought the quilt to life. The addition of an African batik print for the border finished the project. The real miracle was finding the savanna material covered with meandering giraffes for the backing, making a two-sided quilt.

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Categories : Basic Squares, Brights, Twin

STRING QUILTS or Five Easy Pieces

13 06 2012

: String Quilt 1

: String Quilt 2

: String Quilt 3

: String Quilt 4

: String Quilt 5

When my scrap bag gets too stuffed, and I can’t fit any more quilting leftovers into it, I schedule a “scrap quilting” day. I clear the deck, dump out all the scraps onto the table, cut a pile of muslin foundation squares, and go to work. Taking random sized strips, and bizarre color combinations, I start sewing and flipping, making at least four of the same kind of pattern. When put together, the blocks form very interesting mini quilts. I use them for hostess gifts, ladies’ club raffles, or hang them in rotation in my house.

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Categories : Basic Squares, Brights, Uncategorized, Wall Hanging

Winter/Holiday Placemats

28 10 2010

These sweet holiday placemats come in sets of four. The winter scenes are outline-quilted to define all the critical lines of the images. The sky portions are free motion quilted to give a sense of moving air, and smoke emanating from the little chimneys. They are backed with a dainty white-on-white floral print.

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Categories : AVAILABLE FOR SALE, Brights, Holiday, Table Topper

Metamorphosis 1

23 10 2010

This project was the result of a class taken at The City Quilter with Judy Doenias. Rather than purchase new coordinated fabric, I selected about eight completely unrelated fabrics from my stash, and laid them out in an order that seemed to make sense. The cutting and piecing was easy. For the placement, it was necessary to work carefully on a design wall, because the rows ran in diagonals, from bottom left to top right. Each fabric stands alone, and then joins its adjacent one in separate add-ons beginning at the center, and working outwards. It was complex, systematic, and fun.

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Categories : AVAILABLE FOR SALE, Basic Squares, Brights, Twin

Purple Squares Squared

21 10 2010

If you like pinks and purples, you will love this quilt. The use of two-inch, four-inch, and eight-inch squares gives it movement and variety. The sixteen-patch blocks each utilize two well coordinated fabrics; carefully cut and stitched, they demonstrate crisp intersections, and clarity of design. The back is a batik of purple, lavender and plum geometric that reflects the colors on the front.

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Categories : AVAILABLE FOR SALE, Basic Squares, Brights, Twin

Sail Away Triangles

27 05 2010

This quilt contains remnants of every quilt I ever made; a good use of my scrap basket. I sewed thin strips onto a seven-inch muslin foundation. I then cut the blocks in half on the diagonal, and joined those pieces to half-square triangles of bright jewel toned solids. As I sewed the blocks into rows and joined the rows together, the resultant image reminded me of a fleet of sailboats.