Posted on Wednesday, December 14, 2011 | By Quilt Magazine | 1 Comment

Five Questions with Nancy Rink

Recently, Quilt talked to Nancy Rink, who designed “Milky Way”, the cover quilt for the February/March 2012 issue.

QUILT: How did you come up with this pattern?

NR: Originally I designed this pattern as a sampler with nine different star blocks in the center.  To make things easier and speed up the assembly process, I picked the block that I thought would best show off the various fabrics.

QUILT: What made you decide to use multiple different star designs?

NR: I love star blocks and never seem to tire of making them in all their different variations. And I have always wanted to make a quilt with the star sashing technique used in the quilt and with the staggered star border.  It all just seemed to work together with one complementing the other.

QUILT: Why did you decide to add multiple borders to this quilt?

NR: One of my quilting friends tells me “You’ve never met a stripe you didn’t like.”  Although I’d never really thought about it, she was right.  I love stripes. They make great sashing, borders, and binding. They can add a lot of motion to a simple design. In the design and color workshops I teach, I try to convince quilters that they need to use more stripes. Then, when I saw the Cocheco III fabric samples, I thought—three stripe fabrics!?  Who puts three stripe fabrics in a single fabric collection?  That’s when I decided that whatever quilt I designed had to show off all three stripe fabrics; hence, the multiple borders.  It just seemed a natural fit.

QUILT: Did you design/make this quilt with anyone particular in mind?

NR: Me. I wanted to make a quilt that fit my style.  I have a big sleigh bed with a dark brown leather headboard in my master bedroom and a coral/pink chair and ottoman that sits next to it.  Perfection!

QUILT: Anything else you want to tell our readers about this quilt?

NR: One funny story:  The quilt was hanging in the QUILT Magazine booth at Quilt Market and my booth was sort of catty-corner from it.  I had a little wall-hanging made from the same fabric collection in my booth.  More than one shop-owner told me, “Don’t take this wrong– your little quilt is cute, but I really like that quilt over there much better.”  I just smiled and said, “That’s okay, I won’t take it wrong.”

Deb Hearn, Editor-in-Chief