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Aren’t these the bomb!

I love the fabrics from Westminster by the Kaffe Collective.

The Kaffe Collective includes Kaffe Fassett, Brandon Mably, and Phillip Jacobs.

Incredible designers all.

The Designer Rolls are 6″ wide strips cut across the width of the fabric from selvage to selvage.

There are 20 different strips in a roll.

Each roll has a color theme.

Designer Rolls are perfect to use in the Quickest Quick Step Quilt pattern.

It uses 6″ strips of cotton on the front and back.

It’s reversible!  It also quilts as you sew.

The batting is cut in 6″ strips also.

Quilting is actually optional since the batting is secured in the seams.

Fabrics are sorted into two different looks with binding to complement both sides.

The Designer Rolls have enough strips for the lap size quilt, front and back!  Just add borders and binding.

How cool is that?  Cut and ready to sew.

What a perfect gift or a new look for the sofa or your favorite rocking chair.

The quilt pictured is made from batik (surprise!).

I have also used flannel very successfully.

Other Designer Rolls include two Designer Essentials Textures rolls by Free Spirit.

They provide some great blenders to use with the Kaffe Designer Rolls.

Designer Essentials Solids are also available in three color combinations.

The solids can be used alone or as blenders with the printed rolls.

As the Quick Step Quilt is made, extra quilting is done as you go.

This way you do not have to handle the whole quilt while doing the quilting in the rows.

The plainer the fabric, the more it begs for quilting.

This would be a good time to practice some machine quilting designs.  Choose continuous border designs 4″ – 5″ wide.

Larger quilts can be made using the Designer Rolls.

The table below shows how many rolls are needed for different size quilts.

Additional fabric needed is noted.

Coordinating fabrics are available for borders and binding online at www.batiks.com.

You can tip the color by the choice of borders.

To use the design rolls, the first step will be to sort the fabrics for the front and for the back of the quilt.

In the larger sizes, different rolls can be used.

Some of my favorites for borders are shown below.  More fabrics are arriving all the time.  Yummy!

The Quickest Quick Step pattern is from Cotton Dreams patterns which is Carol Britt’s pattern company.

Carol is also the owner of Batiks Etcetera & Sew What Fabrics.  I also write this blog.

I sell my patterns retail through Batiks Etcetera & Sew What Fabrics and many other quilt shops.

Quilt shops can order from Cotton Dreams by contacting Batiks Etcetera.

I grew up in a Navy family and we moved many summers of my life.  I to this day get antsy in the summer because it’s time to move.

Moving was hard but my very wise Mother told us we got to reinvent ourselves when we moved.  We could change from shy to boisterous, short hair to long, girly girl to tomboy.  It was a very liberating concept.

We have these great pictures patches of all 50 states by Zebra Patterns.  They measure 6″ x 7″.  They are colorful and intriguing.  What a great way to do a memory quilt or a life story quilt.  Pick out the states you have lived in and combine them with some patchwork or borders.  This would be a great quilt for graduation or for a marriage combining their states.

We moved back to certain states multiple times so if I wanted I could repeat those states.  We lived in Newport, Rhode Island three times, Virginia three times, and spent parts of most summers in Maine.

So my history would include:  Italy, California, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Maine, Virginia, Florida and Kentucky.  If I included places we spent multiple weeks between moves and yearly vacations, I could add New Jersey, New Hampshire and North Carolina.  We don’t have one for Italy so I would have to be inventive and represent my birthplace in the quilt.

Click on any picture to see all of the other states.  What would your history look like?

Quilters have always used words and writing on their quilts.  Most find letters, numbers, punctuation, words, and writing fascinating.  A short trip through our website yielded seven books and patterns related to words.

Word fabrics have been increasing in availability.  We have close to 200 word related products under Word Fabrics on our website.  A new group with Paris saying and maps just came in and will be online soon.

We have had lots of fun with all of them in the shop and in our booths.  Our name in the booth was made with the Fabric Expressions pattern.

Click on any of the pictures to see more about the product.

This gorgeous line of printed cotton is called Marzipan.  It has a definite German influence in design.  Jason Yenter designed it for In the Beginning Fabrics.

I love the intricacy of the print and the happy nature.  And I’m a sucker year round for any version of red and green.  My German Mother and Grandmother would have loved it!

The panel is adorable.  You could make coasters – 5″ squares or use them in with any charm quilt pattern.

The stripe is begging to become a border or a table runner like the Karen Montgomery’s pattern, Easy Striped Tablerunner.  The pattern uses a 60 degree triangle and uses stripes to their best benefit.  The pattern calls for the Creative Grids’ 8″ Sixty Degree Triangle.

Sometimes the stripe is so wide that a 12″ Sixty Degree Triangle is better.  This one is by Clearview.  Creative Grids doesn’t make a 12″ one.  You will need to add fabric grips to the Clearview Triangle.  Creative Grids features non slip dots so the ruler stays in place.  It’s Grrrrreat!

Here’s a FREE download from In the Beginning Fabrics using the Marzipan line.  It is very pretty.  I think I would put a different dot in the place of the black.  Maybe the green dot would be good.  I like the black binding.  What do you think?  Do you like the black dot?

One last thought.  I have been craving Marzipan candy since I ordered this fabric.  I love it and grew up with marzipan at Christmas sent by my Great-Grandmother and other family members in Germany.  It always had rice paper under the log of candy and you could eat it, too!  But the marzipan is soooo good.  My mouth is watering.  I may need to mail order some!

I loved Dr. Seuss as a kid.  And I still do!  I was happy to read the books to my siblings.  I still love the Grinch, too.

The first Dr. Seuss book I could call my own was a present in first grade for my birthday.  Billy Stufflebean gave me “One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish” and wrote his name and the date 1906! (1960)  We lived in Newport, Rhode Island in Navy housing and shortly thereafter moved to Florida.

I have the book around here somewhere.  Small world – my best friend in high school Karin Lynn knew Billy before she moved to Virginia Beach.

My husband who is 3 years older did not have a Dr. Seuss tradition.  He just didn’t understand my excitement when Robert Kaufman Fabrics announced the new Dr. Seuss line of fabrics.  He also didn’t have younger brothers and sisters to read to.

If we had children they would be Dr. Seuss kids!

We ordered the full line of Dr. Seuss Celebration and Cat In the Hat.  Pre order yours now to get in on the first shipments.  The prints and coordinates are so much fun.  They would be great for a sofa quilt, kids room, a grandma’s house quilt.