Design process: Woven Kisses edition

The quilt top for my scrappy test of the upcoming mystery quilt turned out really, really well.  Keeping it to myself a little bit longer is much more challenging than I anticipated.  I keep telling myself to not upload that photo just yet.

To temper that urge, I'll share an older finish, designed and made for the Fall/Winter 2023 Island Batik catalog.  

Woven Kisses by Canuck Quilter Designs
Fabric from Romance Garden, an Island Batik Signature Collection
by Kathy Engle for Sherry Shish of Powered by Quilting 

I really like the interlocking parts in the kiss block.  It's a pretty simple design, but it didn't show up in my head ready to drop into a grid layout and be a quilt.  I thought you might like a look at the design journey.  I looked back into my EQ file to see how the design evolved.  You'll notice there was some backtracking involved.  

Did you recognize my Cosmic Cloud in there?  It was the blue one halfway through.  It cropped up partway when I made a certain choice, but there was still a kernel of another idea there so I went back later and explored another direction until Woven Kisses showed up.

I had a little oops with my test blocks. 

It helps to pay attention to unit orientation.  I ended up getting reacquainted with my seam ripper.  Paying attention would have been more efficient.

I made these without cutting any triangles.  If you've used any of my patterns, you know I'm partial to not cutting triangles.  Stitch-and-flip methods are my favourites. That led to a last-minute change to the design.  It turns out that using the stitch and flip method to make four units at a time created two pairs of mirror image units instead of four identical units as I had planned.  That's why the two blocks are also mirror images.

With that figured out, I finalized my first draft of the pattern, petted some pretty fabric and started cutting.

I also designed a hug block as a variation.

Unfortunately, adding some of these to the design would have made the fabric and cutting requirements complicated.  Looking at it now, I wish I had figured out how to include it.  Ah well, I can keep it in my back pocket to use in something new later.

I hope you enjoyed this glimpse into my design process.  I'm off to work on some tips and tutorials for the Mystery quilt-along, followed by another date with EQ to see where a few new ideas may lead.

Happy quilting,

Joanne

Woven Kisses is now available in PDF format from my Etsy shop, or in print from your favorite quilt shop.  It includes five sizes, from throw to king.  I think making just 6 squares would make a cute baby quilt too.