My Favorite Designers - Chapter 4 Julie Herman

My introduction to Julie Herman of JayBird Designs was at the Sisters Oregon Quilters Affair - the workshop week before the annual outdoor quilt show. I've had the pleasure of going there twice - once in 2013 and again in 2015.





One of my courses on the first trip was Chopsticks. I thought it would be the perfect pattern for a series of  crazy purple, salmon and greeny/gold fat quarters I bought on a cross country road trip. They were wild and at that time, a little outside my color comfort zone. I added a sashing fabric that was even more outside my norm. I call this one Hazardous Material because the acid green evokes a feeling of toxic material. I love it!


Julie's class was awesome. As she says, her "superpower is geometry and design". And Boy is she a s-hero. She puts such thought into her designs. She designed a set of rulers - Hex N More and Sidekick - that are used in most of her patterns. With these rulers you can cut so many shapes. And they all play well together!

                           

So this workshop got me hooked. The next quilt to come to my attention was a BOM called Toes in the Sand. I loved the colors. Loved the look of the repeating triangles. Kelly Cline quilted my Toes in the Sand. And of course it was perfect.
I don't know if this was Julie's first BOM with repeating shapes, but I was hooked.  First Triangles, then . . . 

Hexagons - Park Bench. I am hoping to teach this at Mea Bernina and I had so much fun making the shop sample. Turquoise, green, and orange fabrics on a dark blue background. Stunning if I do say so myself.

Ok, so now I was on the lookout for more. The next one I did was Gravity - in fact I just finished it last week and it is in the "to be quilted" pile. Following Julie's style of repeating shapes, Gravity is a series of 18 diamonds. This quilt was offered by several shops as a BOM in solids, but I chose to do it in batiks instead of solids and I really like how it turned out. It was quite a challenge to get enough batiks of the right colors and I argued with myself about whether to continue Julie's design for the dark to light background, or just do a dark background. In the end, I went with her original design. It still needs to be quilted, and it's huge! This is my 6'2" son standing on a chair holding up the quilt.

I have several other JayBird patterns and BOM waiting to be started. The one calling my name the loudest is Sweet Tooth. 

So, I highly recommend Julie's classes and patterns. Julie is a fresh, young designer and great teacher. Her patterns are fun, interesting, geometric beauties. Oh, and I just saw her post on FB that she is expecting her first baby. Congratulations Julie and and hubby Lawrence.

Curious about Geometry? Check out Julie and JayBird!