The Nordmann Quilt pattern began as a little seed in my head last Christmas when I was designing the Tor Quilt pattern. If you've made the Tor Quilt you might have noticed a similar shape! Autumn and Christmas are hands down my favourite times of the year so I have been bursting with excitement to finally be able to release the pattern and see those little seeds grow into mighty trees.
The Nordmann Fir is, for me, the king of the Christmas tree with a beautiful shape and pine-y smell. It's a little ironic that my cover quilt features the colours of turning autumn leaves when in fact the Nordmann is an evergreen with needles but you get the idea...
When I start designing a quilt pattern I usually have a very clear vision of the colours I want to use and it can be hard for me to get past that when it comes time to make my other samples. But, every time, I find myself just days from pattern launch having more and more ideas!
I've really relished pushing my colour confidence even further with the Nordmann Quilt - the options are almost endless - and that's how I ended up writing an extension for the pattern.
The design uses Half Rectangle Triangles and Flying Geese to make the trees and their 'stars'. The original pattern is aimed at confident beginners and uses the quick and easy two-at-a-time HRT and the no-waste four-at-a-time flying geese methods.
As I played around more and more with colour layouts I started to explore how how you could use more colour in the quilt without any fabric waste. In the original pattern the method used makes a pair of trees in the same colour but what if you only want to make one?
The Nordmann Extension pattern includes instructions to make your Flying Geese and Half Rectangle Triangles one at a time. This way you can avoid fabric wastage but it is a little trickier because you need to work with fabric on the bias. You might want to have a little experience handling fabric before attempting this so I have aimed the extension at Intermediate level quilters.
Here are a few mock-ups with some notes about which pattern you need to make them...
L-R: Five colour quilt made with the original pattern (bundle available). Two colour quilt made with the original pattern (bundle available). Seven colour quilt made with the pattern extension bundle (bundle available)
L-R: Thirteen colour quilt made with the pattern extension. Five colour quilt made with the pattern extension (bundle available). Eight colour quilt made with the pattern extension bundle (bundle available)
Clockwise L-R: Three colour quilt made with the pattern extension. Four colour quilt made with the pattern extension (bundle available). Five colour quilt made with the pattern extension bundle (bundle available) Six colour quilt made with the pattern extension (bundle available).
The extension will tell you how to hack the pattern with complete instructions on making the Nordmann Quilt in any colour layout that you like! The patterns are available separately or as a bundle but remember that you will need the original pattern in order to complete the quilt.
This is definitely a pattern with endless permutations. It's so hard to decide which is my favourite!
