Playtime

by Karen Kehl

Playtime uses a traditional Drunkard’s path block and negative space to give a playful modern feel to a traditional favorite. Changing colors dramatically changes the feel of this quilt. The pattern gives a lot of practice in curved piecing and includes instructions for an inset circle with no seams in the circle or background. The back has a fun inset strip that uses the same curves and circles. And it is finished with a machine sewn, flanged binding that gives a pop of color along the outer edge.

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I think of my Drunkard’s Path patterns as my cocktail quilts. Playtime is important to all of us, whether it is child’s play, our playing with fabric, or some playtime out with others sampling good food and drink.
Karen Kehl
Designer
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Karen Kehl has been playing with fabric as long as she can remember. Her Grandma Ella was a quilter, who taught her to select fabrics and cut out pieces with cardboard templates. There was a dresser full of fabric scraps in her playroom, and her mom let her use them for crafts and projects. In the 1970’s, when dollhouse miniatures were all the rage, she made miniature quilts to scale and sold them at a local hobby shop.

About six years ago, when she moved to the East Coast for work, she joined the Friendship Star Quilt Guild. She credits the guild, and particularly her small group, the EQ7, for encouraging her to begin designing quilt patterns. Karen started with a very traditional quilting background and has moved into modern quilting in the past five years. She loves the clean lines and says she is a little obsessed with curved piecing right now. She also loves color – especially deep jewel tones of teal, blue, purple, and magenta. When she is not sewing, Karen is a wife, the mother of four adult children, a nurse, a professor, and a scientist. Karen started Better Done Quilts in 2020 with the “extra” time she saved commuting because she was working from home during the coronavirus pandemic.

BetterDoneQuilts.com

@betterdonequilts

Photos by Laura Loewen

This pattern is available only to members of The Modern Quilt Guild. Not a member? Learn more about joining here.