Retro Ribbon: Sew much in one pattern!

  Retro Ribbon is a fun, confident beginner pattern that is full of curves to bring you all the retro vibes! But the funny thing is, it was a total accident.

  I wasn’t even thinking about designing a pattern when an opportunity of a lifetime popped up. I am a graduate of the Quilter’s Candy Pattern Writing Course, run by the Oprah of the Quiltiverse: Elizabeth Chappell. Elizabeth reached out to the alumni explaining she was organizing a quilty business retreat in October to Art Gallery Fabrics, and applications were open. When I was accepted, I was absolutely beside myself with excitement!

 I’m going to one of the best and biggest names in fabric and get to meet my quilty friends in real life, and get to make connections and do all the business retreat type things!?!? This is a dream come true! 

One of the fun things about this trip is that all the alumni who attend will be making their own block and eventually it will be a sampler quilt. While coming up with a design for my block, I stumbled upon the block that would become Retro Ribbon. The beginning stages were a really cool block, but not enough color. So after tweaking and landing on five colors, there was no denying that I had to do something with this block.

I had been looking for an opportunity to work with the Art Gallery Fabrics Pure Solids line, and now that opportunity was here. Since warm colors of oranges, yellows and browns make my heart sing and Autumn was approaching, it made sense so go with a yummy warm palette. You heard me, I said yummy! Look at this line up from the Pure Solids line: Peach Sorbet, Mandarin, Burnt Orange, Apple Cider and Chocolate. So good!

Pure Solids are lovely to work with, and they just feel luxurious. I chose a gorgeous flower print from Sharon Holland’s tribute line for the backing and for another first, I opted for it in flannel. Who’s ready for the cooler weather?

Retro Ribbon is an excellent pattern to play with color and value. I found depending on the placement of contrast colors, different patterns will emerge. Any which way you look at it though, it’s trippy so I love it! Ha!

Don’t worry if you’re not exactly confident in curves. Retro Ribbon is the perfect pattern for those wanting to learn or practise their curves. With room built in for trimming, wonky curve blocks can be mended easily. I also walk you through with video tutorials for visual learners. 

Plus! As there is an added BONUS video tutorial on how to make a secondary quilt with your Retro Ribbon scraps. Yup! Two quilts, one pattern. Gotta use up all those yummy scraps, right? 

I am so excited to get this pattern out into the world and see all of your beautiful versions of it come to life! Please tag me on social media with #retroribbonquilt and #theretroquilterpatterns so I can see all of your quilty goodness! 

Retro Ribbon is my fourth pattern, and it releases Friday October 7th.