The making of a green glass door

Of the four patterns I had at spring market, my favorite is green glass door.  I actually drew this design shortly after we opened--over 5 years ago!  It took this long for me to get together a great grouping of green fabrics, make the quilt and write the pattern.  That's one of the funny things I have found about designing and publishing patterns--often designs that we sketch out take years to come to fruition. 

Anyway, starting a second sample of green glass door is one of the first things I did upon returning home from market a few weeks ago.  This time, I decided to make it in blues.  It always starts with some sort of inspiration for me...in this case, a collection of blue bottles I have sitting on a windowsill in my studio.

Then, a stack of fabrics.  It never hurts to have way more than you could ever use!

Then I dive in and start cutting pieces, one at a time.  Although I usually like to cut multiple pieces at a time for the sake of efficiency, I make an exception for this quilt because I want to make fabric placement decisions as I go along.  As I cut, I place the block centers on a design board.  A big part of the success of a green glass door is having an even dispersement of large/small, dark/light, funky/non-funky prints.  I want to make sure that I do not cut too many of my favorites, which could make the quilt less interesting,

I also like to make sure to include some really random fabrics--fabrics that I bought because I loved, but did not necessarily have a plan for.  Like this print with the chairs...chairs with birds!  So random and so fun!!

Sometimes, things can get a little messy on my cutting table during this process. 

Once I have cut the centers, I start cutting strips for the frames and pinning them up on the board with the centers.

Once I think I have the frames and centers set, I start to sew them all together.  It's a lot of fun, really.   And I like how the process of making this particular quilt differs from our other quilts.