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Two very different ways to design a quilt

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In an earlier post I confessed that I rarely plan my quilts very much. But that does not mean there is no design process at all. Over the years I have used two very different ways to design a quilt surface. Traditional quilt design For the longest time, I thought that this was the only possible process for designing and sewing a quilt: 1. Choose a block design, perhaps two different ones 2. Choose the colours (and fabrics) for the block/blocks, which will all be similar. Note that this usually meant an expensive trip to the fabric store. 3. Cut all the pieces for the blocks 4. Sew the blocks, organise the blocks into a surface according to your plan or pattern and sew them together. 5. Design done, quilt top done. Somehow, this felt rather demanding, but I still believed that this was the way quilts were supposed to be designed. And that’s how I sewed my first quilt, a twin-sized quilt for our newly renovated bedroom. Because we had done a bit of interior decorat...
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Splendid colour tips for quilting: Brown in quilts

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Today’s post concentrates on brown colour in quilts. It may not be the most exciting colour, but it can be very useful! You will get a tip or two on what to watch out for and many examples of how to use brown fabrics in your quilts with success. Brown is a colour in its own right, even though it is not one of the colours of the rainbow. One can also think of it as a very dark orange. In the CMYK colour model, brown is created by mixing yellow, magenta, and black. I remember the carboard palettes of watercolours at school: one got brown by mixing red, yellow and blue. The result was usually an ugly brown. And the water used for cleaning the brush became rather an unattractive shade of brown after one had dipped the brush in it a couple of times. Wikipedia mentions that both European and US polls reveal that brown is the people’s least popular favourite colour. (Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown ) What to watch out for when using brown Too much brown may make the quilt ...
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This quilt is called Serious

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Greetings from the Tilkunviilaaja studio! May I introduce to you my first quilt finish of 2026: Serious quilt (Totinen in Finnish). She is basking in the wintry sunshine on the snow that is full of children’s footprints. We were doing the photoshoot on the top of a small hill where children come to go down it on their sleds. I saw a quilt like this in completely different colours and decided to make a version with a very dark background. My 16-blocks would also feature certain coloured squares from corner to corner. I knew that I would find enough fabrics for this quilt in my stash. These were the first blocks sewn, early in October 2025. At this point, I was very inspired! Indeed, I had no shortage of suitable fabrics for the squares: And yet, even with a sizeable stash, I could not help but buy an exciting mystery bag from the local quilt shop Tilkkunen. I happened to see that a limited number of such bags was available and I just could not help myself. This is what the bag looke...
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Simple zipper bag: How many mistakes can one person make?

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I’m a veteran zipper bag maker. I’ve sewn and documented a total of 360 zipper pouches, and I still make mistakes now and then. In fact, I seem to be very creative when it comes to making mistakes because I’ve managed to invent at least twenty different ones. If you’ve ever wondered whether you are the only one unpicking seams from a seemingly simple project, this post is for you. 1 – The rookie mistake Whenever I make this mistake, I think that a person who has sewn so many zipper bags really should know better already. But of course I’ve made the rookie mistake and sewn around the bag and lining pieces and forgotten to open the zipper. This happened, for example, when I was making the Grandma/Mummi zipper bag, which poses here in its finished state: The only way to recover from this mistake is to say hello to the seam ripper! One must unpick enough of the stitching so that one can open the zipper at least partly – to be able to turn the bag right side out. 2 – Pin mistake Sor...
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