Live.Love.Sew quilt pattern review

Lets face it - I have been out there doing a bit of 'try before you buy' recently.

 I was looking for a pattern to showcase  Les Fleurs the inagural, and eagerly awaited fabric collection from Rifle Paper Co for Cotton + Steel.  It is a lovely collection but it was a bit tricky because it combines some large, medium and small scale prints which in turn read as light, medium and dark shades.  

I was drawn to the Quatro quilt pattern by Keera Job from Live.Love.Sew's for a few reasons.  

First and foremost this was because the centre square in the block design provided a wonderful opportunity to showcase those large scale prints.  I mean to say, if Anna Rifle Bond has gone to the trouble to draw a pony, it deserves to be showcased right?  The elegant lines of the block design was also a factor because it just seemed to feel right for those pretty prints.  

The icing on the cake was the fact that Keera is an Australian designer.  Could there be a more perfect fit for an Australian quilt shop like The Next Stitch?

I have been quilting for more than 20 years and in the late 1990's I even designed a couple of patterns for an Australian craft publication.  There have been times over the years when I have set out to make a project from a pattern and I have ended up completely reworking the construction because I could see a different way to approach the piecing.  

In so many ways following Keera's Quatro quilt pattern felt like coming home.  The cutting instructions were clear and economical. The fabric requirements were also bang on!  Lets face it - none of us like purchasing fabrics for a special project to find that we have 25cm excess background, or even worse that it was so tight that you had to go purchase more because you'd made a crooked cut.

Sitting down to sew, I found the written instructions were  really well written and supported by diagrams for any pinch points. She also guided you through the construction so that the end result was an effortless, but well constructed quilt top. There were also no nasty surprises with stretchy bias on the edges of blocks.  

As well as being a quilt designer, mum to small children, and wife to a cattle farmer, Keera is also a teacher by profession.  This comes through strongly in her patterns. Seriously folks, buying a Live.Love.Sew pattern is like holding a little quilt workshop in your hand.

In case you still haven't caught on - I was deeply impressed. 

I could not be more delighted to  be now one of a growing number of shops stocking a selection of the Live.Love.Sew Pattern Co's patterns.  The fact that she is great to have a natter to on the phone is pretty darn good as well.  Welcome to The Next Stitch family Keera!

As well as Quatro, we also have Aztec, Wild Goose Chase, Gumdrop, Dozen Roses and Morrocco listed in the pattern section of the shop for $11.95 each.  We have also included the back cover of the pattern so that you can see the fabric requirements up front.

Now the only thing left to do is decide which pattern will be next.  Morocco in Alison Glass' Handcrafted Indigo's perhaps?