Simply Dashing by Highway 10 Designs

I am excited to introduce the newest quilt pattern from Highway 10 Designs - Simply Dashing.  Two fabrics in a unique layout make for a simple to make, but eye catching quilt.  The pattern comes with instructions for 5 sizes from a generously sized baby to king sizes.  We love this pattern so much that we have already made it in three totally different colorways that I will share.  It is available as a PDF download or in paper format in the Highway 10 Designs Etsy Store.

 

Kathy pieced our cover quilt in classic black and white.  It is so crisp and really brings out the geometric nature of the quilt.  Kathy took awhile to decide how she wanted to quilt it as she she loved the pieced top just as it was, and didn't want to detract from the graphic design.  In the end gently flowing vertical lines using an invisible thread was just the right finish.

The first quilt that I pieced to test drive the pattern was this pink and grey version in the baby size.

I quilted this version with a pantograph called Sweet Pea that compliments the motif in the pink fabric.  It was quilted using a grey So Fine thread that blended nicely into the background fabric so the quilting just added some texture but didn't distract from the design of the quilt.

And now my favorite version of Simply Dashing- our teal and navy one that I pieced and quilted.

And here you can see how great the design looks on a bed.

The Moda Grunge Dot fabric inspired me to quilt more circles all over the quilt.  I love how it turned out! 

I wasn't 100% sure my idea would translate to the quilt the way it looked in my head, but after taking a step back and looking at my first pass I was feeling much more confident.

I am a hand guided quilter, no computer to quilt perfect circles here, so I used circle templates to create the design.  I settled on 4 different sizes,  a 2", 3", 4" and 5".  My hands were tiring quite quickly trying to hold on to the slippery templates,  so I cut small pieces of shelf liner and slipped them under the templates and it really made a huge difference.  I didn't attach the shelf liner to the template, simply placing it underneath was sufficient.

I randomly grabbed the different size circles and stitched around them. I would double stitch around part of the template to travel to where the starting point for the next template needed to be.  The first little bit took quite a bit of thinking to achieve the look I was after, but after not too long I found my groove and the quilting progressed at a reasonable pace.

 I hope you enjoyed seeing Simply Dashing in its 3 versions.  I left out one part of the story - how this quilt got its name.  Head on over to visit Kathy's post at www.tamarackshack.blogspot.com to read all about it!