My Maple Leaf Quilt (and Me!) at Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design

Good morning, and happy Monday! I have an exciting collaboration/project/event to talk to you all about today.

Many months ago, local surface designer Allison Bielke approached me with a fun idea for a fabric design contest. We teamed up with the Wisconsin AIGA (a graphic design association) for a contest challenging Wisconsin designers to create prints inspired by our state's natural beauty.

We chose a handful of the prints that were submitted for the contest, had them printed on fabric by Modern Yardage, and I'm creating a quilt using all of the prints. It's been a fun design challenge to come up with something that showcased the prints nicely, tied in with the theme of Wisconsin's natural beauty, and had a modern design that would appeal to the AIGA crowd.

I ended up choosing a simple, classic maple leaf design, and I think it's looking amazing. On Tuesday night, I'll be unveiling the completed quilt at a special event at the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design. The event is open to the public, so I hope all you local peeps will come out for it!

Allison will be talking about her design process when creating her fun, often retro-inspired prints, and what it's like to be a fabric designer. I'll be talking about my design process for creating my quilts (especially this particular quilt), as well as fabric design from the consumer's perspective. What do quilters and sewists buy, and why do they buy it? What do the most successful fabric designers do well that makes them so successful? We'll also be raffling off some quilts, and Allison and I will have fabric and patterns available for sale.

The event starts at 6 p.m. I hope to see you there!