Hi I’m Pat Sloan, the Aurifil Designer of the Month coordinator. I’d like to introduce you to our May Aurifil Designer, the fabulous and fun Kaye England!
I am delighted to share Kaye’s background with you. Her love of reproductions has inspired the quilt and the pattern she has for you this month, it’s a great lap project!
And I had the opportunity to interview Kaye and it was such fun! CLICK HERE and scroll to the Monday Feb 7, 2011 interview. Listen on your computer or download to your ipad, mp3 or other player.
Post your photo at our Flickr folder and one quilter will win a prize of Aurifil thread! Post a photo of your completed top or a project. Everyone in the flickr folder is in the running!
Flickr folder – http://www.flickr.com/groups/2011aurifildesignerofthemonth/
When was your FIRST quilt sighting? Did it inspire you to start quilting? If not, what did? My grandmothers quilted but truly it was just an evolving of loving the fabrics
What is your favorite type of quilt or quilt pattern? I like about everything but probably the simple four patch and nine patch continue to inspire me
We all have parts of the process we ‘prefer’ more than others. What part of quilt making do you ‘Prefer’ most and why? I love the piecing the most because it’s like a puzzle – always a surprise
Do you do other crafts now? Did you do those BQ ‘Before Quilting’, what types of ‘stuff making’ do you connect with the most?? I do loads of other crafts but pretty much quilting owns my time
Did you have a career prior to making art, and what was it? I had an interior design business and the only thing I use that for now is my own home.
How do you fill your soul? What I mean by this is – what makes you SO HAPPY that you know that if you do this you are experiencing a little ‘Heaven on Earth’. Being home!
When you start a new project do you have a ritual you follow? Like cleaning your work area, buying a new tablet to sketch in, or maybe having a new bag of M&M’s on hand! Yes, I so love having a clean space for each new project and candy is ALWAYS close at hand
Do you have a process to get your ideas started? I use a theme and words. Some people use photos, fabric swatches… etc I work on graph paper mostly but it’s just a process
What is your favorite weight of Aurifil thread? What are you ‘go to’ thread colors?I am madly in love with the 50wt for piecing and the 40wt for embroidery and/or quilting
Besides your sewing machine, what are the tools you MUST have when you quilt? I use very little besides the machine and my specialty rulers – –
Do you travel to teach? Yes I travel loads – about half of the year is on the road to shops and guilds as well as major shows
How would you describe your personality? Are you process oriented, detailed, big picture, are you carefree, structured, unstructured, all over the place depending on the project? Wow I am a bit of all of these things. I do think that each project will rein you in as to where you need to be.
If you could train with, or work with, or follow one person for a day.. who would it be and why? My Mother – – Because it’s where I learned ALL my skills
Anything else you’d like to share? Just that I hope everyone learns to make quilting a joyous event – don’t stress the small stuff – enjoy what you’re doing – strive to be as clean as possible and move on!!!!
And a few on the light side… answer ones that apply
- The Book you are currently reading – Read very little fiction – but now reading Wuthering Heights (not like I don’t know how it ends)
- Your Favorite Movie – Out of Africa
- A Song that makes you ‘dance the happy dance’ The Chicken DANCE (I’m sure this will drive people crazy but it is the silliest of dances)
- The Color you have always LOVED….. ANY GREEN
************** THE PATTERN/The Giveaway ******************
Kaye’s TIP for making this pattern – “Make sure to vary the values in the nine patch and frames to achieve the look of this quilt”
CLICK HERE to Download Kaye England Almost solid pattern
EACH MONTH we will pick one random winner that has made one of the Designer projects to receive a special Aurifil thread prize.. wowzer!!.
You can make ANY of the designer projects (and we hope you make them all!)
Share your photos at our Flickr Folder… we can’t WAIT to see what you do!
http://www.flickr.com/groups/2011aurifildesignerofthemonth/
***************************Join us at FACEBOOK ****************************
Become a member of the AURlfil fan page on Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/aurifil.quilt.thread
Join Kaye at http://www.kayeengland.com/
and I hope you join me, Pat Sloan, at my facebook FUN PAGE
http://www.facebook.com/PatSloanQuiltFun
And read my daily blog http://www.PatSloan.typepad.com
Thanks for the informative interview and the lovely quilt photos. I would like to look at the project instructions yet receive a file damaged error when attempt to download. Perhaps someone could check this and perhaps email a good pdf to me? Thanks for a good kickoff for this month!
Marcia I sent you a private email .. hope you got it to work.
Kaye England’s Aurifil thread assortment is called Freshly Baked.
Miss-type: it’s called Freshly Baked.
Kaye England’s Aurifil thread collection is called Freshly Baked. It compliments her
Bread and Butter fabric collection. It consists of 10 luscious 5o wt. spools of Mako cotton. Thank you for the Almost solid pattern.
I would love to download the free pattern from the May 5th interview – it is gorgeous! BUT I get only one page of the instructions each time I try. Perhaps there is a problem with the download itself. I would appreciate it if you could help me to get the entire pattern with instructions. Thank you in advance!
Maeve there is just one page to the pattern… you have it all
Thanks for the interview and the pattern Almost Solid. I’d love to win some Freshly Baked Thread, too. …Or any other Aurifil collection! THanks, Again. Cathy vJ
I have my top done, now I need to get it quilted. Just love how it turned out, totally scrappy. The cutting instructions for the setting and corner triangles has the pictures in the wrong place. Just in case anyone was a litttle confused like ME!!!
Finally finished everything and quilted/bound my version of Kaye England’s Almost Solid. I too had to sort through the instructions and figure out a lot on my own for this quilt. My photo is posted in flickr! This newbie learned a lot from this project. Thanks to Kaye, Pat, and Aurifil!
Thank you for the great interview and pattern
Kaye’s threads are called Freshly Baked
I could not get the pattern to load. Would love to have it because it is a gorgeous quilt.
Beverly , I can download the pattern properly at http://auribuzz.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/almost-solid-2.pdf
if you still cannot let send me an email request http://about.me/alexveronelli and I will be happy to send it to you as attachment .
Great content thanks for writing.