I am still here! :)

Hello friends,

now that you have recovered from a surprise of my new blog post – Hi! I am still here!! 🙂

My “long-time-no-see” has multiple reasons, main of which is that I am in a process of revamping this blog and website and preparing to launch something new. At first, I thought I will just leave the blog alone and emerge with the new website and all that, but as most things in life, this is taking longer time than I first anticipated, so – here I am! Juts to say hi and chat a little, update you on my creative endeavors and share my thoughts. 🙂

Spring did arrive here in western NY, things started to bloom and then….

Yeah, we got almost 5″ of the white stuff!! As crazy as weather can get around here, I don’t think I’ve seen this before. 🙁 But of course it is all short lived and our little blooming doughnut peach emerged from under this stuff as if nothing happened! Now weather or not we will peaches, remains to be seen.

So what have I been up to?

As you maybe saw on other social media – I am still happy and honored to be a part of amazing group of quilters who are also testers for Sharon Holland’s beautiful patterns.

Sharon’s latest release is beautiful South Paw quilt pattern! Not only do we have the privilege of testing new patterns and sharing among friends but Sharon is also an amazing friend and mentor to us all. She even makes these beautiful graphics for each one of us testers, that incorporate not only our picture and our quilts, but also our inspiration images.

For my version (yes my friends, it is RED!!), my inspiration was my Serbian heritage. When I saw Sharon’s original design for the South Paw, it immediately reminded me of traditional Serbian kilims. And a lot of them traditionally have red color as background color (example is at bottom right above), as colors and designs (shapes) are all very intentional and symbolic in kilim-making tradition.

So…. I set out to make my quilt with red background!! If anyone told me just a while ago that I would make a quilt with red background, I would honestly thing they are out of their mind…. But here I was!! With a challenge in front of me and all the beautiful Art Gallery Fabrics I can find…. I will admit, this one did give me some trouble and headache, to a point that I was kicking myself!! But as I persevered and tried and tried, it all finally fell into place and I really LOVE this quilt!!

My version of South Paw is made with beautiful Aurora red from AGF Pure Solids (as background) and prints Terracotta collection by AGF (plus few more Pure Solids).

This pattern is quick to make and will look stunning in so many color combinations!! For more color ideas just check Sharon’s blog post about the pattern release and also the hashtag #southpawquilt .

Now I am getting ready to quilt it and having fun thinking of what to do for that…. Any suggestions?

In the meantime, Sharon’s testers team is fully in swing of testing yet another beautiful pattern!! This one is called Prickly Pear and – it is a stunner my friends!!

For this one, I am going the “easy” way of just playing with lusciously gorgeous Aquarelle collection by Katarina Roccella

I mean – can ANYTHING made from these beauties be “meh”?? Much less amazing design like Prickly Pear!! For the full reveal of the pattern and all the tester quilts you will have to wait until Friday – mark April 30th on your calendars!! – but in the meantime, if you follow Sharon on Instagram and follow hashtag #pricklypearquilt , you will see some amazing color combinations and blocks.

Here is my preview:

These florals are just making me smile…

So, my friends you might be still asking about the beginning of this post and what is it the NEW thing I will be launching soon?

By now you all know that I LOVE to design patterns and that I have done it for a long time now… Many free patterns shared here, creations for new collections and AGF Lookbooks, even several designs published in magazines like McCall’s Quilting and Quiltmaker. So it may come as I surprise that I have NOT yet published any patterns commercially, under my own brand and name, Mara Quilt Designs. Or at least one might ask WHY that didn’t happen yet? 🙂

While the answer to WHY could take hours to write about, or even think about, short answer is – the time is coming!! I am getting ready and working hard behind the scenes to have:

1. New and improved website, blog and digital pattern shop
2. New style of Newsletter communications with you all (I know I dropped the ball on that one!)
3. Possibly a Facebook group to chat and learn together (good idea?)
4. And most importantly – PATTERNS!! New patterns to inspire you to play, explore and enjoy your own creativity!!

TA-DAAAH!! So what do you think about tagline? 🙂

I should maybe explain what I mean by that. I want to create quilt patterns that go beyond just instruction. I want you to yes, use my detail instructions, all the math and diagrams of course, but once you make your blocks or units, I want to to be able to play with them! What I mean is that I am creating a line of patterns that will have blocks and units that give you multiple layout options and thus create different visual effects. I want to inspire you to ask that one, VERY important question in creative process – WHAT IF…? As in, what if I turn these blocks this way, or what if I put these blocks on-point, instead of in straight setting, what if I just strategically skip a block or two… all the “what if…?” questions you can imagine!! All with yardage, math, cutting and instructions done for you of course.

It might be an ambitions vision/plan on my part and maybe it is not as good of an idea as I think it is… but you know what, I feel really passionate about this and I will give it try!

There. I said it. It’s out there. No backing now!! 😉

Any thoughts on this my friends? Suggestions? What kind of patterns would YOU like to see?

OK, I will stop here for now, even though I can talk about all this for a long time. But I would really, really LOVE to know your thoughts about my idea, so leave a comment if you have a minute! Thank you!!

Hope you are all staying safe and having fun creating,

Love,

Marija