The Moons Akimbo special
Dear long-suffering readers, here is the Moons Akimbo post I promised months ago! I know I don’t have to tell you how crazy life gets sometimes. Still, no excuses. As a result I am offering you all your very own special sale! You can now buy my patterns right here on my website, which in itself is super exciting. Your secret coupon code is 20MOONS – use it to get 20% off either pattern (or both patterns)!
Moons Akimbo Testers
This is the Moons Akimbo special. I had a kick-ass group of testers for this pattern, and they all made completely different versions of the pattern. One of them took some creative liberties and made a work of art!
Vanessa and Amanda used all solids for their versions. Vanessa is the queen of teal! I love the effective contrast of the teal and white in her two-color Moons Akimbo throw. Amanda chose to do the two-value range version, and her quilt top makes me want to drink wine in a vineyard at dusk. She used all Art Gallery Fabric solids and her quilt top was published in one of their newsletters – how cool is that!
Top by Vanessa Griffin 
Top by Amanda Hornibrook
My favorite thing about designing patterns is when someone makes something you never saw coming from the pattern I designed. I just love surprises! The other two testers, Susan and Kerri, did something thrilling – they used ombré fabrics! In my value-range based design, the overall quilt can have an ombré effect as you can see in both Amanda’s version and the cover quilt, but these two took it a step further.
Susan used solids for one of her value ranges, and then a single ombré star fabric for her contrast. It was super effective! She later quilted it with ruler-work circles on strings, which is totally killer.
Top by Susan Taubel 
Quilting by Susan Taubel
Whaaaaaaaat. I know, right? So cool. Kerri went even further, and used a single ombré fabric to make a smaller wall hanging version of Moons Akimbo pictured below. The effect is so painterly… I feel like there’s a whole world in there!
I couldn’t pick between these photos, here have both. I’m going to fall into that blue if I look at it any longer… or the blue might look back into me… so let’s move ahead. In summary, Moons Akimbo is super versatile! If you haven’t yet, check out my pattern shop and use secret coupon code 20MOONS at checkout to get 20% off!
Alright, here’s what’s…
Coming up! Floating Forest
I’m pretty excited to tell you that these ladies have my next pattern in-hand for testing as of earlier this week. Floating Forest will release November 9th! Floating Forest is a modern quilt pattern inspired by kelp. I just love kelp. Going to school in Santa Cruz, I spend many hours kayaking on Monterey Bay surrounded by the stuff, and I grew up going to the Monterey Bay Aquarium – I particularly love the kelp forest there. The elements of this pattern twist around each other, giving the quilter the decision of what to emphasize based on fabric and color choice. This pattern can look completely different with different choices!
The final pattern will have instructions for baby, throw, and queen sizes. Feast your eyes on these sneak peak mockups (I might have gone a little wild in my design software). I’m currently working on quilting my first Floating Forest top, also pictured below, and next I will make a baby size. Which mockup will I base it on?! Stay tuned.
Karoline, I’d like to be able to write my poems as creatively and prolifically as you design and make quilts/patterns!
Both the beautiful original presentations of your patterns and the fascinating coloristic interpretations of them by your testers are exciting and fun to see. I really enjoy looking at all the visuals you include in your newsletter. It’s a feast of creative color.
:} A.M.
Thanks Aunt Maggie! My absolute favorite thing is to see what others make with my patterns. That’s a real joy for me, because so often it’s something I didn’t expect!