The Ascend Quilt Pattern
I’m very excited to introduce my Ascend quilt pattern! It’s incredibly special to me, as it’s my first quilt pattern in my pattern shop! I put so much work into building a pattern writing workflow, learning about things like desktop publishing software and sales tax collection (still a little iffy there; sorry, Arizona). A big thank you to Amber from Alderwood Studio for her Pattern Writing Academy, Business Basics, and Pattern Designer Collective courses and groups for getting it started!
The Ascend pattern has some of my favorite quilt themes!
Motion: The upward-pointing motifs give the illusion of upward movement, hence the name of the pattern: Ascend.
Light: The two halves of each motif can be used to create a dramatic lighting effect, as I did for the cover quilt. It adds a bit of dimension to the quilt, making the shapes seem to pop out of the quilt!
Geometry: I love a bold geometric quilt, and the angles in this quilt are unconventional! 90°? 45°? No, we have 63.4° and 32.0° angles instead.
This quilt is fairly simple to put together. It’s a beginner foundation paper piecing (FPP) pattern. I wrote the pattern with cutting instructions and diagrams that take away the guesswork and ambiguity that are often part of FPP, so anyone who hasn’t tried the technique yet can learn from this pattern!
For more experienced paper piecers, I suggest trying the freezer paper method for FPP. The traditional FPP method uses a lot of printer paper for this pattern, especially for the larger sizes. With the freezer paper method, you can reuse templates 10+ times. I used six of each template to make the throw size quilt… and then reused them to make a baby size quilt! I have another color scheme in mind, and those templates will have yet another chance to make beautiful quilts. If you’ve tried FPP before, but not the freezer paper method, this is a good pattern to learn with. If you haven’t tried FPP before but still want to use the freezer paper method, I say go for it! A few of my testers were in the same boat and they all had success with the pattern.
I made both of these quilts using just the twelve templates pictured using the freezer paper method for FPP. And I plan on using the templates some more!
I’m already working on my next Ascend quilt! I’m adding to the motion by throwing in some bright orange motifs to stand out against the purple motifs and blue background!
I’m really excited to see your interpretation of this pattern! The design allows you to play with motion, color, and lighting. Share your photos on Instagram using the #AscendQuilt and #SweetPixelQuilts hashtags. Here are some of the quilts made by the Ascend pattern testers.
Ready to put your own spin on this pattern? You can purchase a PDF copy of the pattern here.
This is the first of, hopefully, many patterns in my pattern shop! I am already well into the process for my second pattern, and I’m always in need of enthusiastic pattern testers. If you’re interested in testing a future pattern, you can sign up for my pattern test announcement email list for all the deets.
