I'm so happy to finally be putting this pattern out into the quilt-iverse. Welcome Chroma! It's a traditionally pieced quilt that uses paper templates to cut your pieces. It finishes at 60" in diameter and is considered an Intermediate Skill Level project.
Before I get into more specifics about this super unique and fun pattern, let's go back to the beginning. In 2018 I designed a whole cloth quilt design for an awesome company called Honest Fabric. They digitally print very large whole cloth quilts and the possibilities are endless. You can upload your own design or even a photo and have it printed onto a bed size piece of fabric, ready for quilting.
And so I came up with this colorful, intricate, layered round design that I was so excited that I didn't need to piece. I could take it straight to my long arm! And I did... and I played! I treated each little color section as it's own shape and explored different quilting motifs.
But in the back of my mind I knew I wanted to eventually write a pattern with this look. Fast forward about 3 years I finally felt like I had build up the skill level to be able to solve the puzzle that I knew Chroma would be.
My goal was to make the pattern accessible. I didn't want to write a monster of a pattern that would take a month for someone to make. But I also didn't want to lose the complexity and drama of this design by over simplifying it. Once I wrapped my head around the design I felt like I have solved a Rubik's cube. The piecing process is surprisingly easy!
I then set out to make my first actual Chroma using 16 Fat Quarters from my stash. The layout I was making I called the Swirl Option. I made extra sure to be able to get the most out of each fat quarter, to make the largest quilt top possible, without going over the limitations of a fat quarter and without being too tight of a fit.
The pattern uses paper templates to cut out triangle pieces from your fabrics and with the Swirl Option, I was able to stack four fat quarters at a time, lay out the specified templates and mass cut. What a time saver! In fact, from start to finish this quilt top took me 10 hours! That's like one weekend of pleasure sewing! WOW! I had struck pattern gold.
And it worked! The templates worked beautifully and I had started to create a piecing process that would be simple to write instructions for. I also had to make sure that it was quilt-able. Was this going to be every long arm quilter's nightmare? Nope. I floated the quilt top just fine and it quilted beautifully.
Next, I want to play with the color placement. Besides the Swirl, what else could I do? Two Tone? Ta-da! Whoa, can you believe this is the same pattern?
Yup, same exact pattern, same process. Now this particular quilt I knew was going to be special and I had big plans for quilting it. I'll speak more about it in another blog post but essentially this one took me close to 50 hours to complete!
The last option I wanted to play with was having the colors sort of "bloom" out from the center. Enter the Bloom Option. Still the same pattern, totally different feeling. I'm excited to make soooo many versions of all the options.
The last one I wanted to highlight in this blog post is this swirl version using Libs Elliott Phosphor 21 collection. When I saw her new fabric I knew it was going to be perfect for Chroma so I reached out and she graciously agreed to work with me. I can't tell you how much these fabrics just glow. I am now anxiously awaiting this quilt top to be long arm quilted by Karlee Porter. I'm so honored that she's going to work her magic on here for me!
What a great community to be a part of! I'm glad blessed to be working with such talented and hard working people and I can't wait to see how it turns out!
If you'd like to snag the pattern for yourself I've got PDF, Printed, and Wholesale packs in my shop now! Oh and go ahead and check out #ChromaQuilt on Instagram to see what other makers have been doing with such a versatile pattern!
