The Evolving Palette of a Patchwork Powerhouse: Nancy Mahoney

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Nancy MahoneyWhen Nancy Mahoney found herself between jobs in the early 1990s, little did she know she was on the cusp of a career within the quilt world. She attributes her success as a quilter, pattern and fabric designer, teacher, and frequent contributor to quilt magazines to being in the right place at the right time. Her success also comes from creative talent, hard work and a deep love for quiltmaking.

Here at Fons & Porter, we like to say that Nancy Mahoney might be the hardest working star in the quilt business! Both notoriously prolific and notoriously cheerful, she’s a patchwork powerhouse, designing hundreds of quilts—then teaching them (both online and in person), submitting them to magazines, publishing them in her books with Martingale, teaching them on TV with “Fons & Porter’s Love of Quilting”….

Since she first started quilting in 1976, she has designed more than 300 quilts, so asking her to narrow down her quilts for this Trunk Show feature was a challenge!

What has she seen over the years that she’s been quilting? How has her style evolved?

It was her interest in quilts from the 1880s that drew her into quilting. “Those vintage quilts were my inspiration,” she says. “During my first 10 years quilting, my quilts were in that darker color range and palette. Back in the 1970s, you couldn’t even buy cotton fabric, and all the work was hand work.”

Angle of Repose is among her quilts in the darker colors. It’s a tumbling blocks pattern that she pieced and quilted by hand using English paper piecing. The fabrics are plaids.

Angle of Repose 63½” x 84”
Angle of Repose, 63½” x 84”

Over time, Nancy’s palette has become lighter and brighter in part prompted by changes in the quilt market and availability of a wider range of fabrics that led to her being asked to create a collection of 1930s reproduction fabrics.

“I didn’t like thirties quilts then but in time, they grew on me,” Nancy says. “I started liking a brighter color palette. I don’t really like the darker palette anymore but I still like the quilts I made in it.”

Thirties reproductions have waned a bit in popularity recently so Nancy was surprised when McCall’s Quilting selected her Road to Paradise design in a color palette straight out of the thirties for the magazine’s May/June 2017 cover inset.

Road to Paradise 84” x 84”
Road to Paradise 84” x 84”

“I’d designed the quilt some time ago and really wanted to make it,” Nancy says. “When they chose the thirties palette, I was able to use scraps from my stash. It’s a two-block quilt.”

Two-block quilts are favorites with Nancy who likes to create designs that appear more complex than they are. “I like two-block quilts because there are lots of secondary designs,” she says. “I’ve always liked block books, and I like working with blocks. I’m a traditional quilter. The blocks I work with usually aren’t original designs. It’s how you set the blocks and the colors and fabrics you use that make a quilt yours.”

Out of the Blues, a two-block quilt that appeared on the cover of Quilts from Quiltmaker’s 100 Blocks in Fall 2017, is an example of a design rooted in tradition and given a new spin through a two-color blue-and-white palette and using a range of dark to light blue batik fabrics.The intricate look of the design belies the fact the quilt is made from just two 16″ block designs.

Out of the Blues 86” x 86”
Out of the Blues, 86” x 86”

Designing for quilt magazines and working with fabric collections from several companies has stretched Nancy to try a range of color palettes.

“When I wrote my first book (Rich Traditions: Scrap Quilts to Paper Piece, Martingale, 2002), I used my favorite color palette of black, cream and red,” Nancy says. “That’s my go-to color scheme. I push myself to use other color schemes. I’ve pushed myself to use purple and green, and now I really love purple and green. I do a purple and green quilt every once in a while.” Batik Magic, published in Love of Quilting in May/June 2011, was her first purple and green quilt. She also used a touch of black.

Batik Magic Quilt Pattern
Batik Magic, 60” x 72”

Orange is a color she rarely uses. “Earlier this year I sent a quilt to McCall’s in black and white prints with orange,” Nancy says. “It’s really, really scrappy. I was challenging myself to work with orange because I don’t work with it very much. I had to buy orange fabric because I didn’t have enough in my stash.”

The quilt, Peanut Butter Kisses, features a star block. “I like star blocks,” Nancy says. “The sashing disguises the background and the border is pieced. I like pieced borders because they add something extra, and they continue the design all the way out to the quilt edges.”

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Peanut Butter Kisses, 84” x 99”

While Nancy most often designs quilts with pieced blocks, she sometimes adds applique. Morning Glory, which appeared on the cover of the March/April 2018 issue of Love of Quilting, is such a quilt.

“It is pieced blocks with appliqué on top,” she says. “I created the design quite a few years ago for a book but it didn’t make the book. It’s a different look for me. I pieced the border to extend the design beyond the center of the quilt.”

Morning Glory
Morning Glory, 63” x 63”

Nancy likes scrappy quilts and high-contrast color palettes. “I’m not into big prints,” she says. “I think they create less contrast. If I’m going to go to all that trouble making all those points, I want you to see them. I like tone-on-tone fabrics, clear colors and happy fabrics.”

One of her all-time favorite quilts is Ruby Sunrise, which she made in the 1990s and was published in the March/April 2015 issue of Love of Quilting.

Ruby Sunrise Quilt
Ruby Sunrise, 60½” x 76”

“It’s scrappy so when Love of Quilting contacted me to say they were looking for a quilt for a scrap quilt issue, I submitted Ruby Sunrise and they liked it. It’s yellow and red. It was all done with templates and includes lots of little pieces. I quilted it by machine before there were longarms. It has dogtooth borders. It’s all the things I love about quilts. Every time I look at that quilt, I’m just really glad I made it.”

Nancy has found a balance between making quilts she likes and quilts that appeal to other quilters, her students, and book and magazine editors.

“My quilts have jobs,”she says.“They are for magazines, books or teaching samples. I try to make quilts I enjoy and would make anyway.”


This feature is included in the September/October 2018 issue of Fons & Porter’s Love of Quilting.

Dana E. Jones, a former editor of Quilters Newsletter and the SAQA Journal (Studio Art Quilt Associates), is author of Pagtinabangay: The Quilts and Quiltmakers of Caohagan Island, www.islandquiltbook.com. She lives in Gilpin County, Colorado.



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