It’s hard to find commercial patterns that appeal to the young/modern/contemporary quilter. Of course we all know and love Funquilts, Denyse Schmidt, and Kaffe Fassett, but what else is out there? Here are some of my favorites.
Tracey Brooksheir‘s immensely popular Bento Box — Sudoku and Shoji are also interesting:
Bento Box
Sudoku
Shoji
Speaking of immensely popular, Atkinson Designs’ Yellow Brick Road is popular for a reason. It’s easy, fun, quick, and really lets the fabric speak — a glance at the google image search results shows the diversity you can achieve.
Australian company Stargazey Quilts has a very distinctive, off-kilter style and their patterns provide a great bridge to improvisation. I like Ladybirdz, Leavez, and Spikey Starz:
Leavez
Spikey Starz
American Jane‘s Red Cross — with gazillions of little squares, this one looks labor intensive! But I love the effect. See also the Granny Squares pattern. See them amongst their dozens of other great traditional quilt patterns here.
Red Cross
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
Oh great post. Loving Bento and yellow brick road.
thank you!
awesome!
Here are some colorful patterns from my pals at the Chicago School of Fusing:
Check out Laura Wasilowski’s fun patterns: http://artfabrik.com/store/patterns.html
Frieda Anderson’s beautiful garden-y ones:
http://www.friestyle.com/patterns.html
And Melody’ Johnson’s little art quilts:
http://www.wowmelody.com/Pages/Patterns.html
I also love ankastreasures.com
her four patch flip is my current favorite charity pattern. Super fast. its great because its scrap friendly, easy to do and I am anxious to try the urban circle.
I work a pretty modern aesthetic but the book looks modern and country at the same time.
Love these! Especially the Red Cross.
If you’re looking for fresh and modern you might want to check out our website, http://www.materialobsession.com.au we try really hard to be as different and interesting as we can…. no nanna patterns here!
We also blog all our ideas at http://www.materialobsession.blogspot.com and would love to hear from everyone who is into fun and stress free quilting…..
Um… I hate to tell you but the “bento box” is a traditional 1/2 log cabin block & the suduko is a nine-patch. There is nothing “modern” about those blocks. They are plain old “traditonal” patterns. Your choice of color makes a huge impact on the style of the finished quilt. Let’s try not to be so snobby about not wanting to do “grannie” quilts… The only difference is that grannie didn’t pay someone for a pattern that has been done for generation after generation.