Can You Find It?: A Visit with Diane Harris

Please join us as we welcome our dear friend Diane Harris of Stash Bandit (stashbandit.net) back to Quilty Pleasures today!

Diane is here to tell us about her fun Can You Find It? quilt — aka the cover star for our current issue of Quiltmaker:

I was pleased to spot my most recent I Spy quilt on the cover of Quiltmaker’s May/June issue.

My idea was a simple one: I wondered if anyone had ever put novelty fabrics in the middle of Churn Dash blocks. I don’t know that I was the first, but I can say that I love how this quilt turned out. I made it completely from my stash.

The great thing about Churn Dash is that you can change up the proportions endlessly.

I played around with the fabrics I wanted to feature until I was satisfied that the size of the center patch was sufficient.

Since most of the fabrics were bright, clear colors, I wondered if black and white prints would be good as neutrals. It only took a few blocks to decide I loved it. I balanced out the backgrounds and the Churn Dash patches in diagonal rows, which you only notice if you look closely. If nothing else, it made me feel like there was some order in the chaos.

The biggest surprise of all was when I went to audition fabrics for borders. I always feel like blue is the universal neutral that ties everything together, but it didn’t seem to do much for this quilt. Neither did red, green or orange. In frustration I threw up the wild idea of a black and white chevron, and voila, it was like an exclamation point!

It takes a perfect storm for a quilt to land on the cover of a magazine. It’s only happened to me a few times, and it’s always exciting. When you see it in the grocery store, you want to grab the nearest shopper and babble away in excitement.

I hope you’ll corral some novelty prints and give this quilt a go. It’s easy and it’s really fun!

Come visit my new website at StashBandit.net. You might enjoy Become a Color-Savvy Quilter or Five Easy Ways to Improve Your Patchwork. Quilt on!

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Thank you for joining us today, Diane!

If you’d like to make Can You Find It? and don’t have a copy of our May/June ’17 issue, print and digital copies are available in our online store. 

A digital pattern is also available for Can You Find It?