Get To Know: The West Hawk Quilt

The West Hawk Quilt came to be in a very exciting way! Let me tell you all about it. 

Check out the West Hawk PDF and Paper Pattern here.

Not long after I released my very first Blanket Statement pattern (Pine Falls), Love Patchwork and Quilting Magazine reached out to me about an opportunity to design a pattern. I was ecstatic! 

They had a specific style in mind, and the quilt pattern was going to be named "Take Flight". I came up with a few designs and sent them over to the editor. They ended up choosing the one below, which I later renamed as “West Hawk”! I’ll get more into the renaming later.

The magazine had also preselected the new Balboa by Cotton & Flax collection for this project, which I was beyond thrilled about because Erin Dollar is one of my favourite fabric designers! 

The fabrics I used were: 

• Lines in Rose
• Lines in Rust
• Boxed in Steel
• Sound Waves in Charcoal 
• Lines in Flax
• Whisp in Putty
• Kona Cotton in Natural

I used Whisp in Charcoal for the backing and Lines in Rose for the binding!

I mailed the quilt all the way to Bristol, England to be photographed for its grand debut in the magazine! If you’re interested, it’s featured in Issue 73 of Love Patchwork and Quilting Magazine.

This quilt eventually became the cover version of my West Hawk Quilt Pattern, which I released in April of 2020! West Hawk was also the first pattern I released post-recovery. As some of you may know, I was diagnosed with cervical cancer in October 2019 and spent eight weeks recovering at home after major surgery.

If you want to know more about my cancer journey, read here.

It was the perfect pattern to ease me back into working again because I had already written the basics for the magazine design! I also decided to add FIVE different sizes with this pattern including wall hanging, baby, throw, twin and bed. 

I officially renamed the “Take Flight” pattern to “West Hawk” because I name all of my patterns after towns and places in Manitoba. I've lived practically my whole life in Manitoba and still live here with my family to this day!

West Hawk is a really cool place. It’s a not-so-sleepy town in southeastern Manitoba famously known for its crystal clear lake, which was formed by a METEOR! 

I feel like the pattern design mimics a bird (or hawk, shall we say?) shape! If you also looked at it as if the lines were running east to west, the feature “bird” would be on the west side of the quilt.

The second West Hawk version I made was this one in navy, blue and peach Kona Solids.  

Here are the colours I used: 

• Ice Peach
• Lt. Parfait
• Peach
• Creamsicle
• Dresden Blue
• Windsor
• Navy

The backing fabric makes me giggle every time I see it! It’s Fried Eggs in Black from the Ruby Star Society’s Darlings Collection. 

I sent this quilt off to Shelly at Ma Tante Quilting and she used Malachite Panto quilting to mimic the eggs on the backing fabric - and I think it looks a little like a topographical map! 

Next up, I picked up a spring inspired bundle from Road 17 N Quilt Shop with a combo of old and new Alexia Marcelle Abegg prints - another one of my favourite fabric designers! I used the bundle to make a throw size version in the following fabrics: 

• Flower Shop -  Charms in Peach
• Add it Up - Peach
• Moonrise - Dream in Lilac
• Alma - She in Lilac
• Alma - Market Floral in Sky
• Add it Up - Slate Blue

For the backing, I used a black and white printed curtain from the “as-is” section at IKEA!

I decided to include instructions for a BONUS rainbow West Hawk version with the pattern! I used Kona Cotton scraps leftover from some of my previous quilts like Paint Lake and Steep Rock to make this one: 

• Cocoa
• Paprika
• Spice
• Caramel
• Banana
• Celery
• Tarragon
• Spring
• Old Green
• Everglade
• Windsor
• Navy
• Snow

As per usual, I had the privilege of working with FANTASTIC pattern testers for the West Hawk launch! Check out their versions below: 

From Jennifer @penelopehandmade

From Claire @madejustsew

From Siri Kate @siri_kate