I want to tell you something that’s going to sound like a big claim, and I mean every word of it: you already own the only quilt collection you’ll ever need.
You just might not know it yet
The Collection That Changed How I Think About Design
Years ago, we released a collection called Quilting 1,2,3. It was hundreds of mix-and-match quilting designs — every background and border you could want, already done for you. All that was missing was the center. You picked a block size, dropped in whatever design you wanted, and just like that, you had a quilt block.
It became one of our best-selling collections of all time, and looking back, I think I know why. It didn’t hand you a finished quilt pattern and tell you to follow it. It handed you a system — and systems are what let you create your own thing, over and over, forever.
Here’s the Part Nobody Expects
The backgrounds and borders in Quilting 1,2,3 come in multiple sizes. So when I sat down to show what’s possible, I grabbed the 5” block and dropped in the Mini Americana designs from our Anniversary Collection.
That’s it. That’s the whole trick. A mini design — something you’d normally think of as a small accent piece — became the centerpiece of a full quilt block.
Then I went bigger. I took one of the larger blocks from Quilting 1,2,3 and filled it with a selection of full-size patches from the same Anniversary Collection. Boom. Another quilt, built from designs that had never once been labeled as quilting designs.
And once you have the block? You’re not just making a quilt. You’ve got table runners, wall hangings, pillow panels — anything a block can become, these can become.
Why We Don’t Do This More Often
I get emails sometimes that say “I don’t really do patches” — like patches and quilting live in two separate rooms of the house and never talk to each other.
I understand where that comes from. We’re trained to think in boxes: patches go on jackets. Quilt designs go in quilts. Florals go on this, monograms go on that. It’s tidy. It’s also completely made up.
A design is just a design. What it becomes depends entirely on what you decide to put it next to.
How I Actually Got Here
I didn’t arrive at this by following a pattern book. I got here by refusing to follow one. I looked at a patch and a quilt block sitting on two different shelves and asked why they had to stay there. Nobody had done it before, so I just… did it. That’s the whole method. It’s less about technique and more about permission — giving yourself permission to move a design out of the box it arrived in.
Your Turn
So here’s what I want you to do: open up whatever collection is sitting in your files right now — mini designs, patches, appliqués, monograms, doesn’t matter — and ask yourself what happens if you drop it into a Quilting 1,2,3 block instead of wherever you’d normally put it.
You might make a quilt. You might make a table runner. You might make something that doesn’t have a name yet because nobody’s made it before.
That’s the whole point.
Go look at your designs differently. Go make something.
If You Don’t Have Quilting 1,2,3 Yet
If this is the first you’re hearing of Quilting 1,2,3, now’s your chance to grab it. It’s available as a printed book version if you like having it in hand at the machine, or as a digital-only version if you’d rather keep everything on your computer. Either way, you’re getting the same backgrounds, borders, and block sizes I used in every example above.
