Many people shy away from complicated quilts. I can’t blame them. Tiny pieces or curved pieces, maybe even Y-seams would scare anyone. But sometimes you can get the same Wow-factor from simple piecing with just amazing color placement. These cases are when a design wall matters to spread the quilt out and see them laid out the way you want them. Not all of us have that luxury, but for those that do… what beauties they can make! The concept for the following quilts from Quilted Joy's longarm machine renters are simple, half square triangles and simple blocks. What caught my eye was the color placements of the blocks. Fantastic!

Layna's colorful diamond

This is Layna’s quilt. I believe the whole quilt is nothing but half square triangles. I could see this being a great layer cake creation. What makes this stand out is how she arranged the the black halves of her half square triangles to create the radiating squares out from the center. I like how she grouped the colors as well. If they were more randomly mixed up it still would have been a striking quilt, but I think it would have had a more scrappy feel.

She quilted it with a paper pantograph called Turbulence. This pantograph is large circular swirls which really contrasts the straight lines while complementing the circular nature of the squares. I think it was a great pick.

LeAnn's Grid of Grids

LeAnn made this basic patch quilt. They are 36 patches with super skinny sashing, but each block is only made with two fabrics. She quilted this with our meander design board to cover it with quilting. I like the uniformity of fabrics within the individual blocks, but I also like how a couple of them are just a little more complicated. Do you see that some of the little blocks are made up of more little blocks? Great job, LeAnn!

Tammy's Design Wall Creation

This may be the simplest of them all. This is a large piece of white fabric with five sewn stripes on one side. She then appliqued large rounded squares with smaller squares appliqued in their center. The swirly batik material Tammy chose draws to mind gem stones. Tammy created a great balance of colors and the alternating angle of the squares themselves adds some movement and form to the design. She quilted it with a design board we just call Spiral. We felt it added a more circular feeling to a very squarish quilt. I also like the texture it adds with the tight thin quilting. It’s a fun design for a great quilt.

If you are still learning and practicing some of your piecing skills, have no fear. There are a lot of possibilities out there that will allow you to create really stunning quilts without really complicated piecing. But I would recommend a design wall. Here at Quilted Joy, we have two design boards that are just foam board insulation panels wrapped with flannel. The boards can have pins stuck into them to help hold your pieces if they are too heavy for the flannel to hold them up. Then you can lay out your pieces and get the exact arrangement that will make your design pop. When you are all done, share a picture with us in the Quilted Joy Clubhouse! We’d love to see what you’ve been working on.