Facets of Pride Quilt (Piecing Pride)

Today, we’re featuring a guest post from Aurifil Artisan Ben Millett. Ben joined our Aurifil family last year and we find ourselves a little more in awe of his work with each new piece he shares. You may have seen one of his modern masterpieces at a QuiltCon, or perhaps you spotted him walking the exhibit floor, showcasing one of his signature quilted sweatshirts while taking in one of the show’s quilted beauties in quiet introspection.

Quilting is Ben’s creative outlet outside his work at an agriculture company in Des Moines, Iowa. He explores color and shape by applying contemporary color palettes to traditional quilt blocks, turning digital concepts into a physical reality with fabric and thread. He creates to play, to communicate ideas, to further the gay agenda, to make what he wants to see.

Today, we’re thrilled to feature a brand new quilt by Aurifil Artisan Ben Millett. Ben first shared parts of his process for this quilt with us at QuiltCon this past February. He’s incredibly thorough in his creative experimentation and was working through machine quilting with our thicker cotton 12wt/2py thread. Imagine our delight when, a little over 3 months later, we were flipping through the latest issue of Love Patchwork & Quilting Magazine only to find a glorious feature for this quilt. Huge thanks to Ben for sharing it with us here today, giving a little extra insight into how it all came together. We hope you’re as inspired as we are!

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Title: Facets of Pride
Pattern: Piecing Pride, Love Patchwork & Quilting issue 138
Top and Binding: Kona Cotton in White, Carnation, Bahama Blue, Chestnut, Black, Lipstick, Orange, Duckling, Parrot, Cyan, Dark Violet, and multiple other colorways
Backing: Grid in Navy from Riley Blake Designs
Batting: Hobbs Batting 100% Cotton
Quilting: Custom digital quilting path with Aurifil 12wt in Natural White #2021, Bright Pink #2425, Light Turqoise #5006, Black #2692, Dark Antique Gold #2372, Paprika #2270, Pumpkin #2150, Yellow #2135, Grass Green #1114, Turquoise #2810, Medium Lavender #2540; Needle size 19; Aurifil 28wt in Natural White #2021 in bobbin
Size: 24″ × 40″
Finished: 8 January 2024

I was invited by Love Patchwork & Quilting to create an improv-technique pattern based on Daniel Quasar’s Progress Pride flag. While I mostly pre-plan my quilts and mostly only dabble in improv, this seemed like a good opportunity to create a variation of the flag that leaned into qualities that quilting can afford distinct from strictly patchwork.

One challenge was thinking through how to create the diagonals of the nonbinary and POC colors without relying on half-square triangles (HSTs). There are already a number of patterns that use HSTs and quarter-square triangles and I didn’t want to repeat those. I landed on using wonky snowball corners as a middle-ground approach that would lend itself to improv piecing while still enabling the strong lines of color within the flag.

I won’t repeat the pattern here, as you can follow that in Love Patchwork & Quilting issue 138 (link below). For the sake of this, I’ll be talking through my thought process behind the pattern and the final quilt.

After setting out the grid of each Main color from the pattern (my eleven go-to Kona Cotton colorways), I pulled out my scrap bin of many other Kona Cotton colors, selecting hues and values related to the Main color. I kind-of randomly put these Corner colors on each Main color. Yes, it’s an improv pattern; while I freed myself from being picky about the Corner colors themselves, but I couldn’t give up full control on where they were placed.

You may note that there are only nine columns here, while the finished has ten columns. First, good eye. Second, that’s because despite the digital mock-up I made seeming to have the right proportion with nine columns, in-person it needed an extra block of the six rainbow colors. Adding the blocks for the tenth column became a process similar to laying out all the blocks as before, except this time making them work with the already-assembled neighbors. I moved blocks around within the rows to accommodate the extra tenth block.

Using the piecing approach I describe in the pattern, I started with the purple, blue, and green rows to confirm that the process I had worked out would create the variation that I wanted, including the bleeding of colors between stripes. 

Indeed, this technique was creating unique blocks, not just in the color combination, but also in quantity of the central Main color and the Corner colors. The blocks became (**squints to see this**) individual four-facet gem stones. The Corner colors perform the same role as facets for gem stones, which is to reflect light, and thus support the main color while “reflecting” the color of the neighbors.

I wanted to bring together these ideas of unique blocks and gem-stone-like blocks specifically with this flag. While hopefully everyone who identifies as LGBTQ+ can see themselves represented by the Progress Pride flag, no two people who so identify are the same. We know this practically while also coming together collectively for the good of all who identify. Each of those unique individuals has value and worth, even more than any single gem stone. We can reflect the best qualities of each other, recognize one another’s value, and shine brighter together.

With the top assembled, you can more easily see the variety in construction of each block, how no two Main colors have the same shape, despite the common procedure of attaching four snowball corners. The eleven Main colors call out the stripes and diagonals of the original flag design while the Corner colors both integrate the stripes together and emphasize the diagonals of the white, pink, sky blue, brown, and black.

I wanted the quilting thread to emphasize the Main colors. As such, I chose eleven Aurifil 12wt colors that best matched the Main colors so as to bring that Main color through to the Corner colors.

I opted to quilt with a custom digital path using my Handi Quilter Moxie with Pro-Stitcher Lite. I designed a ½” channel path that intermittently tracks up and down. I intended for the up-and-down to come across as if they were light sparkles caught by gem facets.

After posting about the magazine release on Instagram, someone asked if the quilting meant to represent a heartbeat and thus recognize and honor the victims of the shooting at the Pulse Nightclub in Orlando. Even though that hadn’t been intended, I fully welcome and appreciate that interpretation, especially considering the dramatic impact that event had on how visibly out I would become.

One set of lines was created across the entire quilt before being sectioned off for each color so that the thread colors were contained within each row or diagonal.

The quilt was bound using Main color remnants to continue the emphasis of each row and diagonal. Now let’s look a little closer at the quilting.

Along the diagonals, I opted to use the Area Path and Crop functionality of Pro-Stitcher to trace the edges of each color. This meant there were some funky turns and some parts of the up-and-downs that got cropped. I thought it more important for the diagonals to emphasize the flow of the pieced colors than to force strict diagonals. (I did attempt to keep the horizontal lines of the quilting as lined up across thread colors as I could, but there’s only so much I can do.)

(Even though I give permission in the pattern to not feel compelled to match block corners, that’s one bridge too far for myself when I’d have to go out of my way to not match them. I find matched corners too satisfying to just give up that opportunity.)

Love Patchwork & Quilting issue 138 is available now from the publisher. There are a ton of great patterns and articles by queer people in the issue, so it’s definitely worth your money to buy the issue. AND. I also encourage you to use your public library resources like Libby to read the issue when that’s an option.

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HUGE thanks to Ben for sharing some insights into his process — we hope you’ll run out and grab the issue!! It’s a fabulous magazine! If you’re looking for more quilting inspiration regarding Progress Pride Flag, or ways to support makers, check out our links below.

• The Colors of My Pride Quilt by Shannon & Jason
• We Sew Too Loud & Proud Cushion by We Sew Too / Clive Bruder
• Pronouns Pins by Crimson Tate — she/her, they/them, he/him
• Diversity Tags at Badass Quilter’s Society