First off, thank you all so much for all of your kind words about my new Craftsy class, Start Free-Motion Quilting, and thank you to all of you who have signed up already! I'm really enjoying getting to know you and answering your questions :) It's been such a great week so far, so let's keep that streak going, shall we? Today, I've got the last new pattern hitting my pattern shop for the season, the Gradation pattern, available today in my Pattern Shop and on Craftsy.

The Gradation quilt was originally made for an issue of Modern Quilts Unlimited last year - you can read more about that feature right here. One of the things that I really love about this pattern is the way that the changes in tone and color draw your eye across the quilt. I love playing with tones and grades in color, and this is a quilt is a super way to just that.


My original quilt was done up in an assortment of Art Gallery prints, in shades of blue and magenta. As I worked through this quilt, I realized that this would make an absolutely stunning scrap quilt. You could even take it a step further and do a warm/cool quilt using this pattern, following the basic color placement that I used - keeping the warm colors for the lattice work that moves between the blocks, and the cool colors for the pixelated background, or vice versa. There's a lot of different looks you could give to this pattern. Here's a few to feast your eyes on...which one is your favorite?


As with all my patterns, the instructions are quite thorough and illustrated with diagrams throughout to assist you in the quilt making process. If half-square triangles have given you trouble in the past, you'll find great instructions in this pattern for making half-square triangles for this quilt with ease. There's also a black and line drawing of the block so that you can experiment with your color placement. Give it a try, it's a lot of fun to get out some colored pencils and play around with quilt diagrams!

I had two super thorough, super talented testers for this pattern, Alison and Karen. Thank you both so much for your feedback! And they made such lovely, lovely projects - take a look!

Alison Hingston - http://alioops-alioop.blogspot.com.au/ - I love the quilting Alison did, it totally accentuates the geometric nature of the pattern!


Karen O'Connor - @Ladykquilts on Instagram - Karen used gorgeous Liberty of London prints and they look fantastic in this pattern!

Gradation is the last new pattern hitting the Pattern Shop this month. It's been a busy but wonderful month, with four new patterns to love! For the next week, the Gradation pattern will be on sale for just $6. It will return to full price next Friday, so snap it up for a deal while you can through my Pattern Shop and/or Craftsy!  If you're a shop owner and are interested in stocking my paper patterns at your shop, please contact me directly at elizabeth(at)dontcallmebetsy(dot)com. Have a wonderful weekend everyone!