Blog | Bonjour Quilts

Fish Quilt Block (and some Scrap Quilt Ideas)

September 18, 2018 By Kirsty 27 Comments

I’m always on the lookout for scrap quilt ideas – how about you? To me, a good scrap quilt pattern has simple repetitive blocks that let me have fun mixing and matching all of my most loved scrap fabrics.

Last week I wrote a post about Quarter Square Triangles and this scrappy fish quilt block uses a QST variant called the Hourglass block. It’s a simple but really fun block for a baby quilt, and I’ll give you some layout ideas at the end of the post. So let’s have a look, shall we?

This fish quilt block has three parts: a flying geese head, a square body and a Quarter Square Triangle tail.

The block is 3-1/2″ x 8″ unfinished (with seam allowance) and will be 3″ x 7-1/2″ when sewn into a quilt.

We’ll make the fish 2 at a time (as the method for making Hourglass blocks creates 2 at a time).

Scrap Fabric Requirements

If you’re using directional print fabric, read all the instructions first before you cut so you can see how to align the print all the way across your fish block.

For each pair of fish blocks you’ll need the following fabric pieces:

Scrap:

4-1/2″ square

Two 3-1/2″ squares

Two 2-1/4″ x 3-3/4″ rectangles

Background:

4-1/2″ square

Four 2-1/4″ squares

Sew the Hourglass Block Tail

Take a 4-1/2” background and a 4-1/2″ scrap square. Draw a diagonal line on the wrong side of the background square and pair right sides together with the scrap square. Sew a scant 1⁄4” from either side of the marked line. Cut on the drawn line to yield 2 HST units. Press seams toward the darker fabric.

Draw a diagonal line on the wrong side of one of the HST units, perpendicular to the HST centre seam. Place the two HSTs right sides together, making sure different fabrics are facing each other.

Sew a scant 1⁄4” from either side of the marked line. Cut on the drawn line to yield 2 Hourglass units and trim them to 3-1/2” square (I like this ruler* for QST trimming because the extra lines make centring the block easier).

For tips on how to accurately trim Quarter Square Triangle blocks, make sure you check out this post here.

Sew the Flying Geese Head Block

Take two 2-1/4″ background squares and draw a diagonal line on the wrong side of each one. Align one square on one corner of the 2-1/4″ x 3-3/4″ scrap rectangle as shown, then sew on the diagonal line.

Press the corner of the background square away from the unit. Repeat the process with the second background square on the opposite corner of the scrap rectangle. You’ve just made a flying geese unit. Repeat so you have 2 in total.

Trim the flying geese units to 2″ x 3-1/2”, making sure to keep the points centred. I use these Bloc_loc rulers* to trim my flying geese. They’re pricey (as they’re made in the US) but I couldn’t go back to life without them.

Sew the Fish Together

Now you have your fish components it’s time to sew them all together.

I like to press my seams inward. They just sit better for me that way.

A note on directional fabrics. When you sew your Hourglass blocks you’ll get one block in each fabric orientation:

You can see above that it’s easy to rotate your tummy square to match the tail, but it will take a bit of forethought to match the head. If you just remember to cut one flying geese rectangle in each direction of the fabric you’ll be fine.

So, what do we do with these fishies? How can we turn a school of these blocks into a fabulous scrap quilt?

Scrap quilt ideas

The easiest layout would be a lovely ordered layout of fish. I’ve put them all facing the one direction below, but you could alternate directions in the rows, too, for a bit of variation. A colour gradation would also be very pretty.

Or how about a single, rebel fish? (We all know a red fish, right?)

Perhaps you could add a pair of kissing fish in the middle:

Then there’s this one, which I’m calling The Party Starters:

So lots of scrap quilt fun to be had with this block, to be sure.

I hope this gives you some ideas to help reduce your scrap pile. Do know a someone (a Pisces?) who’d like a fish quilt of their own?

Which is your favourite quilt layout – let me know in the comments.

Happy sewing!

Kirsty

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Quarter Square Triangles

September 8, 2018 By Kirsty 16 Comments

Quarter Square Triangles – what a handy block! Quarter Square Triangles (QSTs) can come in a few forms. You might know them as hourglass blocks or perhaps the hybrid Split Quarter Square Triangle. Let’s take a look at them all, with a downloadable Quarter Square Triangle chart thrown in for good measure!

Quarter Square Triangle Variations

Just so we’re all on the same sheet of music, this is what I mean by QST, hourglass and Split QST blocks (see photo below).

Hourglass blocks are Quarter Square Triangle blocks made with only two fabrics, which creates the hourglass silhouette. Or a bow tie if you read it from side to side instead of up and down. (A)

Quarter Square Triangles have four different colour fabrics in the block. (B)

Split Quarter Square Triangles are made with 3 fabrics and consist of one large triangle and two smaller triangles. (C)

How to sew Quarter Square Triangles

As the name suggests, the QST block is simply four triangles sewn together to give a square.

You could by all means cut four separate triangles and then sew them together to form the Quarter Square Triangle block.

This method is handy if you need an exact layout (you want to know the position of all the fabrics). It’s important to remember to cut your individual triangles such that the straight grains of the fabric are on the outer edge of the block. If the bias grain is on the outside you run the risk of stretching. If you cut your triangles from each fabric like this, you’ll be fine:

This method makes it easy to sew a specific unit but it can be a pain to sew bias edges together. Also, if you need a small block the tiny individual triangles will be a bit tricky to handle. For these reasons I prefer to make my Quarter Square Triangles from Half Square Triangle blocks, and that’s what I’m going to show you today.

Hourglass blocks

To make the Hourglass variant of a Quarter Square Triangle you’ll start with 2 oversized squares which you’ll use to make 2 identical HSTs. You will then sew the 2 HSTs together and cut them apart to yield 2 identical hourglass blocks.

When you’ve made your 2 HSTs it helps to press the seams both toward the same fabric. Then put them right sides together, but with different colours opposite each other (the seam will nest). You can see the purple faces the mauve below, and the seam is nested.

Draw a diagonal perpendicular to the direction of the seam, as seen below. Make sure it is at 90 degrees to your seam, otherwise you’ll have trouble maintaining your points in the corner.

Sew a seam a quarter inch either side of the drawn line. Cut the units apart along the drawn line and press your hourglass units open.

So 2 squares make 2 HSTs, which are then used to make 2 hourglass blocks. Don’t worry, I’ll talk about starting square size and trimming a bit further on.

Quarter Square Triangles

This “true” Quarter Square Triangle is made from 2 different HSTs blocks, instead of 2 identical HSTs.

The process is the same – the HSTs are placed right sides together, seams nesting, with a diagonal drawn perpendicular to the HST seams. Two HSTs will yield two QSTs.

One thing to note here is that the 2 Quarter Square Triangles produced will NOT be identical – so keep that in mind when you’re planning your design.

Split Quarter Square Triangles

This nifty little unit is made by replacing one of the HST units with a solid square.

The HST unit is placed right sides together with the square and a diagonal is again drawn perpendicular to the HST seam. One HST and one square will yield 2 SQSTs.

Again, the 2 Split Quarter Square Triangles produced will NOT be identical – they are mirror images.

Quarter Square Triangle Chart

Let’s talk about the size of the starting squares needed to make Quarter Square Triangle blocks.

I make my Quarter Square Triangles the same way I make my Half Square Triangles – oversized. I prefer to make them a little on the large size and then trim them back to give really accurate blocks.

If however you’ve perfected your quarter inch seam and really don’t like trimming, then you can create your Quarter Square Triangles with this formula:

Starting square size = finished QST size + 1-1/4″

So if you want a 4″ QST when it’s sewn into a quilt, you’ll need to start with four 5-1/4″ squares.

If you’re like me and want a bit of breathing room so you can trim your QSTs back to size, then use this formula instead:

Starting square size = finished QST size + 1-1/2″

So if you want that 4″ QST then with the oversizing method you’ll need to start with four 5-1/2″ squares.

Here’s a handy Quarter Square Triangle Chart that lists the starting square sizes for various QST sizes (for the oversized method).

If you’d like a printable version of this chart you can fill in the boxes below and I’ll email it to you. You’ll also get some handy extra emails that will show you where to find some of my other tutorials and downloadable quilting projects.

Quarter Square Triangle Trimming

Firstly, I recommend using a square ruler when trimming your Quarter Square Triangles. I have this one* (below) and it’s fantastic for blocks 6″ and less because of that high density area of lines which makes it easier to pinpoint the centre of your block.

There are two important things to look for when you trim your blocks:

1. Correctly measuring your centre point, and

2. Making sure the diagonals are 45 degrees at the corners of the block.

The centre point of the block will be at the half of the measurement of the unfinished block. So back to our 4″ QSTs:

A 4″ finished QST is 4-1/2″ unfinished. Half of that is 2-1/4″. So you’ll want to put the centre point of your block under the intersection of the lines 2-1/4″ from the edge of the ruler.

The red arrow, below, show the block centre point at 2-1/4″. The black arrows show where the diagonals hit the block corners (remembering the block will be trimmed to 4-1/2″).

It’s important the diagonals are bisecting the corners and you may have to wriggle/rotate your ruler a bit to make this happen. It’s not always possible to get all four corners spot on, but do your best to make them all as accurate as you can.

Having trouble with your triangle diagonals not meeting at the corners? You might need to pay more attention to when you draw your diagonal line on the back of your HSTs. Remember how I mentioned it needs to be perpendicular to the HST seam? Even if it means your line isn’t exactly from corner to corner when you draw it, you want to make sure the line is 90 degrees to the HST seam to create four even quadrants in your block.

I’ve also included the trimming size (unfinished size) on the downloadable chart, as well as the centre point location. It’s good to have all the info in the one place.

What to make with Quarter Square Triangles

I’m biased, but I think you should make my Fleur Queen or Fleur Mini pattern! They both use SQST blocks.

Fleur Mini:

Fleur Queen:

Peta of She Quilts A lot adapted the queen to a crib quilt (below) by only using 4 of the Fleur blocks – isn’t it fantastic!

I hope you get the chance to experiment with Quarter Square Triangles soon. Be sure to drop me an email and show me what you’ve made!

Cheers,

Kirsty

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How to sew a quilted tote bag

August 1, 2018 By Kirsty 11 Comments

You really, really need a quilted tote bag. You might not know it yet, but you do!

Tote bags are super handy for carrying things, and carrying them gently. We’ve had a few fabric library bags get holes in them from book corners. Quilted tote bags are much better at withstanding this type of wear.

Quilted tote bags are also very handy for long trips in the car (when the bag’s full of clothes, on the way to an overnight stay with grandparents) as they double as a pillow.

This quilted tote bag came to be when I was sent some lovely fabric panels from a soon-to-be released fabric line called Alphabet Safari.

The artwork is by a talented local Australian designer (Jennifer Bell of Creative Monsoon) and the fabric will be available in October. My youngest son saw the animal panels and fell head over heels in love with the lion, so I asked if he’d like a bag. A very big YES was the answer.

If you’d like a PDF of the instructions for this quilted tote bag pattern, you’ll find a spot to put in your email address at the bottom of the post.

What you need to make a quilted tote bag

two of the fabric panels, one for each side of the quilted tote

two fat quarters, one for each side of the quilted tote

one half yard of fabric for the lining

one fat quarter of fabric for the handles

2 pieces of batting approx. 19″ x 22-1/2″ each

Sewing your quilted tote bag

First of all, trim two of the individual panels from the yardage. It’s normal for printed designs not to be perfectly square, so don’t sweat it if you find you need to trim a bit extra on some parts.

From each of the fat quarters for the tote sides you need to cut 3 strips 3″ x 21″ and one strip 5″ x 21″.

All seams are a quarter inch.

Sew a 3″ strip to the long edges of the fabric panel, press to the dark side and trim the edges flush with the panel.

Then sew a 3″ strip to the top of the panel and a 5″ strip to the bottom, press to the dark side and trim edges flush with the panel.

Repeat this for the other panel with the other FQ strips.

Check that both of your panels are the same size (trim if required). Mine came out at 16- 3/8″ x 20-1/4″. Feel free to trim yours down to a rounder figure (I just wanted to maximise my fabric).

Quilt your fabric panels

Baste each panel to one of the batting pieces. I used basting spray, but basting pins will do the job too. I wanted to mention that I used this Dream Green quilt batting* . It’s made from recycled plastic bottles, which is fantastic! I’m not a fan of pure polyester for bed quilts, but for things like bags, table runners and wall hangings it’s a great choice. And now it’s more environmentally friendly!

For the quilting I decided to go with a cross hatch quilt design, which I marked out with a hera marker*.

If you want a more structured bag then aim for lots of dense quilting. If a floppier, more pillow-worthy finish would suit you then ease up on the amount of quilting. Details of how I measured and marked my panels can be found in the PDF handout (see below to have it emailed to you).

Once you’ve finished quilting your panels, trim them again to remove excess batting. You might find that you need to trim your panels down a smidge to get them square again. And you want them to both be the same size as we’re about to sew them together.

Sew the quilted tote bag outer layer

Place the panels right sides together and pin around 3 sides (leave the top edge open). Sew all 3 edges together. I used my walking foot as there are quite a few layers involved here.

Next we’re going to box the bottom corners, so that the bag has a bit of body. (I forgot to press my bag seams open before this step, I would recommend you do that first.) Keep the bag inside out, and pull the two panels apart down near the corner. The aim is to line up the bottom seam with the adjacent side seam and make a triangle from the corner.

This triangle can be flattened down on your cutting mat (it should be close to a 90 degree triangle). Mark 2″ along each side and draw a diagonal line between the points with a pencil.

Sew along the pencil line and then trim the corner a quarter inch from the line.

Repeat with the other corner at the bottom of the bag. Turn the bag right side out and press.

Sew the quilted tote bag lining

From your half yard of fabric cut a piece 15-7/8″ x 40-1/4″. This measurement is based on my panels being 16-3/8″ x 20-1/4″ before I sewed them together. If you have trimmed your panels to a different size, this is how to work out what size you need to cut your lining:

Take a quarter inch away from your panel width measurement. Take your panel length and double it, then take away a quarter inch. Or for those of us who love equations:

[Panel width – 1/4″] x [ (Panel length x 2) – 1/4″]

I like to make the lining a little smaller than the bag’s outer layer so it fits nicely in there.

Take the lining fabric and fold it in half along its length, and then sew down both sides (keep the top edge open).

Leave the lining inside out and box the corners as we did for the bag outer. (Again, I forgot to iron my seams open, learn from my mistake!)

Fold the top edge of the bag lining over a half inch toward the wrong side and press in place. Do the same for the bag outer layer.

Sew the tote bag handles

Take the fat quarter for your handles and cut two strips 4-1/2″ x 21″. Fold one strip in half lengthwise, wrong sides together, and press. Open the strip up again and fold the long edges in from each side to meet in the middle, along the pressed line. Press in place.

Fold the fabric strip in half again, along the first pressed line. Both your raw edges are now nicely stowed away. Sew a seam down each side of the strip to hold it all in place. I like to sew several lines – I like the look and think it makes the handles a bit stronger. (If you’re concerned about strength you could also iron on a strip of interfacing on the wrong side of the fabric before you make the handles.) Do the same to the other strip so you have two handles.

Assemble your quilted tote bag

Here we go – we’re on the home stretch now. This is where the magic happens!

Take the bag outer (right side out) and the bag liner (wrong side out) and fit them together. The liner will be inside the bag outer and the wrong sides of each will be touching. Line up the folded top edges of both bag layers and then pin them together. Your handles need to be pinned in between the bag layers as well. Eye up where you’d like them to go and make sure there’s a good amount of handle between the layers (about 3/4″) so it’ll be well secured.

All that’s left to do is top stitch around the perimeter of the bag opening to secure the handles and join the bag liner to the outer layer. I like to do several rounds of top stitching because I know how much “love” my 7 year old gives his bags. I like those handles to be really secure!

And there you have it – a quilted tote bag. Soft and sturdy and ready for all manner of toting. 🙂

Please feel free to save this tutorial to your Pinterest account. If you’d like a PDF copy of these instructions you can have it emailed to you by putting your email address in the box below. Please note that you’ll also receive my newsletter, which will keep you up to date with new tutorials, patterns and of course, outtakes. Everyone loves outtakes 🙂

Keep an eye out for Safari Alphabet fabrics in October – and if you’re a quilt shop and you’d like to stock this line, be sure to get in contact with Two Green Zebras!

Cheers and happy sewing,

Kirsty

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How to Machine Appliqué Your Quilt

July 2, 2018 By Kirsty 15 Comments

If you’re looking for information on how to machine appliqué EPP (or anything for that matter) to your quilt, you’re in the right place! Today I have a tutorial on how to machine appliqué some pretty little EPP hexagon flowers to a quilt block background.

Hello and welcome to those participating in the Kingfisher Stitch-Along! “What is the Kingfisher Stitch-Along?” I hear my regular readers ask. It’s a joint project hosted by Rachel from Stitched in Color and Jodi from Tales of Cloth, to sew the beautiful Kingfisher quilt.

This quilt combines hand pieced English Paper Pieced (EPP) blooms, appliquéd (by hand or machine) to a background fabric, with machine pieced diamonds. I think you’ll agree the result is one scrapalicious and gorgeous quilt!

You can head over to Jodi’s online store to get all the templates and EPP papers you might need. She has a great kit which has papers and acrylic templates for the two shapes in the quilt.

By this stage of making your Kingfisher Quilt you should have a bunch of EPP blooms and some background diamonds to sew them to. You can find Rachel’s tutorial on how to cut your diamonds here.

Before you start make sure you’ve taken the EPP papers out of all the hexigons in your EPP blooms and trim any threads that might extend outside the edges of your EPP (if you glue basted your hexi shapes this is unlikely to be an issue).

Next, fold your background diamond in half from point to point, on both axes and finger press. This is just to give you an easy way to centre your EPP bloom on the diamond prior to machine appliqué.

To fix your bloom to the background, ready for machine sewing, you can either use pins or double-sided fusible web*. I had no problems at all using pins, but if you’re really nervous about the machine appliqué process then you might prefer to use the fusible web. It’s very secure and you won’t have to worry about pricking your fingers. Just follow the instructions on the product to adhere the fusible to your bloom and then to fuse the bloom, centred, to the background diamond.

If pinning, make sure your pins aren’t too close to the EPP edges – you don’t want them to interfere with your sewing machine foot as you sew around the edges.

If you have an open toe sewing foot you will want to use it here. Much like how a night out is more fun wearing an open toe sandal, machine appliqué is a much more enjoyable experience with an open toe foot as you can better see what you’re doing.

The great thing about EPP is that the edges are already turned under so there are no raw edges to contend with. You can pretty much use any stitch you like to secure it to your background as long as you sew it close enough to the edge to secure the two fabric layers (the shape and the folded under edge).

For this example I’m just using a regular straight stitch for my machine appliqué. I like to start sewing midway along an edge. Start with a few backstitches to secure your thread, or if you’re lucky enough to have a machine with a securing stitch, use that. Then start sewing, slowly, towards your first corner.

I have seen some folks comment that they’re a little concerned about stretching the bias edges of their background diamonds. While you’re guiding your EPP/diamonds under your sewing needle, don’t grab the diamonds by their edges. Rest your hands on the outer edges of your EPP and use that if you need to give direction. But really, because we’re sewing in straight lines rather than curves there’s not a lot of need to push your pieces around under the needle. At most you’ll just need a bit of course correction. My other tip is to sew slowly – this will negate the need for sudden, panicked movements. Slow and steady wins the race!

Alright, so we’re sewing our first edge, heading toward a corner. If you’re sewing toward a corner where two EPP pieces meet, you should aim to land your needle down exactly where they meet.

Then lift your sewing foot and pivot the piece until your foot is in line with the next edge.

If you’re sewing toward an outer corner on a hexie, just eyeball it and stop a seam-distance away from the upcoming edge. If you’re a perfectionist then by all means feel free to mark where you want to stop with a water soluble* or air soluble* pen before you get to that corner. Pivot and continue on your way.

Continue around the whole of the bloom until you get back to when you started. I recommend going past your start point 5 or so stitches, backstitch to secure and then cut your threads. You now have a machine appliquéd EPP flower.

You will see that above that my seams are by no means perfectly even. Once all my diamonds are sewn together this will be very hard to detect, so I urge you not to get to per-finicky as you’re sewing. When you are focussing on a very small area it can feel like a millimetre difference is as big as a quarter inch. It really isn’t, and it really won’t be noticeable if you’ve stopped a bit early or late on a corner.

As well as using standard straight stitches, machine appliqué is an opportunity to experiment with some of the fancier stitches on your machine. For my next bloom I chose an irregular edge satin stitch (I have a Janome 8900QCP and it’s stitch #54).

I would definitely recommend a test drive when using a decorative stitch. It’s important to figure out how the needle swings when forming the stitch so you know where you want your needle to be when you stop for corner pivots.

I just use some plain hexi shapes when doing a practice, I don’t bother with using complete EPP units.

Once I have an understanding of the stitch pattern and where I need to put my needle down I can then go on to sew my real pieces.

Sew up to the corner, stopping in line with the corner and when the needle is over to the right. Lift the presser foot:

Then pivot the piece, lower the foot and sew the next line.

For an inner corner, you stop where the pieces join and when your needle is over to the right.

What I will say with the wider decorative stitches is to make sure you go slow where your EPP is closest to the edge of the diamond. The wider stitches have a tendency to “grab” at the fabric and pull it into a little pucker within the stitch itself. Just take your time on the EPP edges closes to the edge of the diamond and you’ll be fine.

Once you have your EPP appliquéd to your diamonds it’s best to sew them together into a quilt top as soon as possible. This will protect the bias edges from stretching with excess handling. If you can’t sew them up straight away, make sure they’re stored in a box or container of some sort so you can just move the box around rather than picking them all up and stressing their edges.

If you have any questions (or tips to pass on) be sure to pop a comment below.

Happy sewing!

Kirsty

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Adori Quilt Block Tutorial

June 24, 2018 By Kirsty 23 Comments

Today I have a quilt block tutorial showing you how to sew up one of these Adori quilt blocks. Sound good? Let’s get to it!

Adori is a log cabin-based quilt block and is made from 3 main fabrics and a background fabric. So first of all, you need to choose your fabrics! Will you go for a monochrome palette, or something neutral and very grown-up looking?

Adori Quilt Block Pattern Tutorial by Kirsty at Bonjour Quilts

Or perhaps like me you’ll go super-colourful* (I’ve chosen some Tula Pink prints here).

I recommend using fabrics that are either solid or have a non-directional print so you won’t have to worry about fabrics appearing “upside down”.

Once you have your 3 main fabrics and a background fabric, the next big decision is what order you’ll put them in. I will say that this is the part that takes me the longest to decide on.

They all look great, right? So which to choose? Sigh.

Not only that, but then there’s the colours and layout of the whole quilt:

If you use a 5 x 7 block layout, this will give you a quilt that finishes 60″ x 84″ (Twin size).

Don’t forget to consider different background colours too. That will make it even harder/longer to choose. You’re welcome. 🙂

If you’re like me and spend a lot of time umming and ahhing over colour placement, it may be helpful to get your colour pencils out and experiment a little. I have a colour-in sheet printable if you’d like to do just that.

If you put your email address in the boxes below you’ll get a PDF download that you can print out and colour to your heart’s content. You’ll also be put on my newsletter list which lets you know whenever I publish tutorials like this one. In fact, if you were already on my newsletter list you would have received this printable download in your inbox. Handy! (And of course, if you don’t think it’s handy and you don’t want me in your inbox, it’s very easy to unsubscribe with a single click.)

This quilt block would also make a great scrappy quilt, too. You could have fun mixing and matching your favourite left-overs into pretty colour combinations for each block.

Right, let’s get on with sewing this quilt block! Firstly, you’ll need to cut the following pieces for each quilt block (C1 = colour 1, etc, and the white is your background fabric):

We’re going to go through each colour group and sew the required components.

Please note that I will be pressing all seams outwards for this block. If you are going to be making a quilt without sashing (i.e. you’ll be joining these blocks directly together) then you’ll want to press the seams for alternate blocks in different directions [outwards AND inwards]. That way your seams will nest when you sew your blocks together. The best way to keep track of this is to mark it on your colour-in sheet PDF download.

Start with first 3 pieces of fabric in the C1 column. Sew the small background pieces to each of the short edges of the C1 rectangle, like this (the arrows show my outward pressing directions. Reverse direction if you’re making an inward pressed block):

Now take the last two pieces of fabric in the C1 column and sew them together, then cut in half to give two components, each 2″ wide:

OK, moving along to the next colour. Just like we did with the last two pieces, take the C2 and background fabrics and sew them together. Then cut them apart into four 2″ components each:

And finally, we do the same again with C3:

We’ll now sew the four log cabin corners for the block. Each log cabin will use a “short” and “long” component in C2 and C3, as well as a 2.75″ background square:

Sew the first round of the log cabin with the centre square, the short C2 component and then the long C2 component. Complete the log cabin with the second round using the short and long C3 components. (Remember to press your seams according to whether it’s an inward or outward block – mine are outward here):

We’re on the home stretch now. Take the two short C1 components and sew them in between 2 of the log cabins as seen below:

And now sew these two parts either side of the long C1 component to give the final block (measures 12.5′ x 12.5″ unfinished):

Wahoo! You’ve finished your Adori block.

Don’t forget, if you want the colour-in PDF be sure to put your details in below to get it by email.

I hope you find this tutorial useful, and if you do make something with this quilt block I’d love to see it. Drop me a line!

Cheers,

Kirsty

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Fleur Baby Quilt

May 6, 2018 By Kirsty 13 Comments

I do love a good mini quilt, but there does come a time when the walls don’t have room for any more. What to do with the pattern then? You could join several together to make a table runner, or you could include the block in a baby quilt.

This is exactly what I decided to do with my Fleur Mini Quilt pattern. Putting four blocks together with some disappearing nine patch blocks makes for a fun 36.5″ x 42.5″ baby quilt.

I had some purple fat quarters (this fabric* and this one*) from Alison Glass’ Chroma fabric line left over from another quilt. Given that Ultraviolet is this year’s Pantone Colour of the Year, I thought it a good idea to make some purple blooms.

I made 3 blocks with the darker fabric being dominant, and one block with the inverse.

The four blocks were sewn in a column and set amongst some scrappy disappearing 9-patch blocks.

Because of the dimensions of the quilt it was quick to baste with a length of yardage. I quilted it on my machine with simple wavy lines across the horizontal axis and made binding from the leftovers of the light and dark purple fabrics.

I machine sewed the binding for this quilt with a zigzag stitch. You can find a tutorial for how I like to do this here. It certainly makes for a quick finish.

I have an project information sheet for this quilt – it builds on the instructions already in the Fleur Mini Quilt pattern to show how to turn the block into a baby quilt. It’s a free download for anyone on my newsletter list (you can join by putting your details in below):

And of course, this project sheet download would work with any pattern (a mini quilt or a standard block) you already have that finishes at 10.5″ (11″ unfinished). It’s a great way to quickly turn a few feature blocks into a lovely baby gift.

That’s it for today – happy sewing to all of you.

Don’t forget the 2018 Pantone Quilt Challenge is now open for entries. If you’ve got a purple-themed quilt, why don’t you enter too?

Fleur Baby Quilt

Dimensions: 36.5″ x 42.5″

Country: Australia

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Colour Explosion Quilt (Twin and Queen)

March 25, 2018 By Kirsty Leave a Comment

Hello, hello, just popping in to say that I’ve released two larger pattern versions of my popular Colour Explosion Baby Quilt.

This quilt pattern is full of half square triangles and is a great vehicle for playing with colour. You can make your version as bright or as restrained as you like. In warm colours, in cool colours, or a mix of both. Try patterns. Or stick with solids. I personally think a version in whisper-soft pastels would also be gorgeous.

Over the past 18 months I’ve had numerous requests to resize this half square triangle quilt pattern into twin and queen size.

Of course, folks could just keep adding more HST blocks to the top and side of the quilt until they reach the size they need, but that can dramatically change the overall look of a pattern. Most of the requests I received asked me to keep the proportions of the original crib quilt – particularly the “explosion effect”.

Because of the dimensions of the original quilt, I couldn’t just increase the block size as it wouldn’t make a proper twin size. (And it definitely wouldn’t be a suitable method for making a queen, which is square.) I put on my thinking cap and came up with the idea of increasing the block size as much as I could. Then I added some space around the edges, in line with the design, to take it to the required measurements.

I think it keeps the spirit of the original quilt. Here’s the twin size layout (63″ x 81″):

And here’s the queen size (90″ x 90″):

The pattern also includes a revamped version of the crib sized quilt, because I’m a stickler for having all things together in their place! 🙂

The twin version of the pattern is perfect for anyone who made the crib quilt for a baby who is now graduating to a big boy or big girl bed. How comforting would it be for them to see a familiar quilt on their new bed?

And as for grown-ups who’d like a queen size – well, there’s an inappropriate joke about explosions in there somewhere, but I’m not going to touch it. Ahem.

Thank you – and if you have sewn a version of the crib size in pastels, please, please let me know. I would love to see it!

Cheers,

Kirsty x

Lattice Quilt (in Gleaned)

March 17, 2018 By Kirsty 45 Comments

This is the second post about this log cabin quilt design – you can find Part 1 over here.

After much ruminating about these Gleaned log cabin blocks, I finally have a finished quilt top to show you!

But first, let me take you through the process. I want to show you that sometimes this quilt-sewing malarky isn’t easy. And sometimes, it can’t be rushed.

In my last post I finished with the photo below, and also mentioned that I wasn’t happy with that layout.

I was trying to get the colours to run diagonally across the quilt, roughly in the order they appear in the jelly roll. I really liked the way each fabric played nicely with its neighbour and wanted to preserve that aesthetic.

When that didn’t work, I looked at more traditional shapes when grouping the colours:

Neither of those filled me with joy, either. Then I thought about making a big spiral, from the outside to the middle, around the rectangle:

I was liking this more, but it still wasn’t the right log cabin layout for me. Perhaps pulling each colour group into its own corner?

I left this design (above) up on the wall for a few days. It was better than the previous versions but something about it was still bugging me.

I started to get my usual mid-project feelings of despair – what are you doing? This is a terrible idea. How did you manage to take such a pretty jelly roll and make it so bleugh? This nasty little internal voice visits from time to time.

Then I had a small realisation. For some reason I had made the decision that I had to use the whole jelly roll and every single block I had sewed. Why I had put this limitation on myself, I don’t know, because I knew that some of the blocks were giving me trouble (see the tan, white and orange blocks boxed below).

I decided to take them out and replace them with other blocks made with Carolyn Friedlander’s fabric (her lines work very well together, thankfully). After making the 10 replacement blocks and a little bit more rearranging, I was much happier with my new layout:

But was it done? Was this the final layout? I decided no. The overall design felt a bit too busy for me. I needed to create some restful space between all that colour so each fabric had a chance to be noticed.

At first I thought I could separate the quarters with white fabric and that would be enough:

Not bad. (I also tried this layout by rotating all of the quarters 180 degrees, seen below:)

More white space was needed, I was sure of this. But how?

Then I remembered a book that I’d bought 6 years ago about Chinese Lattice Design*.

This isn’t a quilting book. It’s simply sketches of beautiful old Chinese lattice windows (along with notes on history and location, etc), printed in the 1930s. No dimensions, no colours, just pure geometry:

I spent an hour flicking through the pages and decided to try a lattice-style layout for this quilt. The exact layout I chose isn’t in the book, but you can certainly see that’s where the inspiration for this log cabin quilt design came from.

So here’s what I decided on:

I also thought about the rotated version:

And then I considered taking out the centre white cross in both versions :

Gleaned fabric, log cabin quilt by Bonjour Quilts

I decided I preferred it with the extra white in the middle.

To make all that sashing I used 3/4 yd of white fabric, cutting 16 strips 1-1/2″ wide.

I sewed each quarter together separately:

Then I sewed the halves together (with sashing in between) and finally the whole quilt together.

And here it is! I hope you like it. I think I’ll have another rest before deciding on the quilting. This log cabin quilt design has been quite a process . We’re going to take a break from each other for a while. 🙂

I think this would be a great quilt to make with plain 6-1/2″ squares instead of the log cabins, too. With a single fabric within each lattice compartment.

My 3 lessons learned from this quilt:

You don’t “have” to do anything (such as use the entire jelly roll in the quilt). It’s your quilt, you do what you please! *Mmm-hmm, snaps fingers*
If the design doesn’t make you feel happy inside, let it rest a few days and see what solutions pop up. Your mind is very clever and creative, but sometimes it needs a bit of time to work through all the pieces.
When trying to make a lot of patterned fabric work together, adding a solid (creating space between prints) can be helpful.

I hope some of this has been helpful for you, too – if only to show you that we all have struggles when quilting. Whatever you might be having trouble with on your sewing journey, don’t let it get you down. Don’t let it stop you creating. You’ll find the answer eventually.

Have a great weekend!

Kirsty x

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Gleaned Log Cabin Quilt

March 7, 2018 By Kirsty 12 Comments

Sit down, grab a cuppa, this is a long one! Nothing dramatic, just one of those conversational posts with lots of photos that I feel compelled to write every now and then.

Back in November last year I picked up a jelly roll* (40 strips, 2.5″ wide) and two mini-charm packs (2.5″ square) of Carolyn Friedlander’s new line Gleaned.

The colours are fresh and modern and play so well with all of Carolyn’s other lines (something I love about her fabrics). I also really love the botanical flavour of many of the prints, especially as I’ve just been reading the latest Uppercase book, which is full of beautiful blooms.

And includes a spread on artist and fabric designer Bari J Ackerman!

There’s also some rather pretty botanica right outside my window at the moment…

But I digress. Anyway, these pre-cuts sat on my (messy) sewing table for quite a bit while I considered what to do with them. I circled back to log cabins blocks because they’re just so easy when using the 2.5″ strips from a roll.

I really liked the colour order used to put the jelly roll together and wanted to keep the neighbouring colours together as “centres” and “logs”.

Aren’t these fantastic neutrals/low-volumes?

When I unwrapped all the mini charms I just took the top colour off and popped it underneath the pile (see below). Then all the centres were one colour further along the colour order than the logs. I just sewed my log cabins from the two colours that were at the top of both piles.

I found I could make two log cabin blocks from each fabric strip (using 2 x mini-charm squares). If you can’t find mini-charm packs, it’s easy enough to take a layer cake* (10″) and chop it into quarters (2.5″).

Now, the strip roll and mini-charm packs didn’t have the exact same number of all the fabrics. In some cases I had more squares than strips for a colour combination, and occasionally more strips than squares. Not a problem, I just matched up the leftovers in pleasing colour combinations.

From a 40 strip roll and 2 x mini-charm packs I made 80 log cabin blocks. I chain pieced them all with a scant quarter inch seam.

My sewing machine ran hot that weekend. Sometimes it’s great to churn out a whole bunch of blocks really quickly.

Then I trimmed all the blocks to 6.5″ square.

Given I had 80 blocks, I decided on an 8 x 10 block layout. This would give a lap sized quilt (48″ x 60″).

This was the first layout I tried.

I was trying to keep the neighbouring colours from the strip roll together but I just wasn’t feeling the love.

I continued on in this vein, trying move the colours across the quilt in the order I wanted. Sadly none of my arrangements were what I had pictured.

It wasn’t helping that I’d had a bad day at work that day (I tend to feel uncreative on such days).

Or that a play fort had appeared in the path between my machine and my design wall:

We’ve had a lot of rain the past week. The kids had fun building an indoor fort with a couple of cool indoor fort kits* and some of our queen bed sheets. (It’s too hot for quilt forts here in Australia right now.)

I wasn’t having a win with the design so I decided to step away from it for a day. I thought perhaps a bit of time off would encourage some different ideas. Plus I had to help the 6 yr old build a farm in the fort. Very important business, you see 🙂

I have a bunch more photos of other layouts, but I’ll save them for the next post, which you can find here.

Hope you’re all having better luck with your creativity!

Cheers!

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Feeling Cross scrappy quilt block

February 15, 2018 By Kirsty 15 Comments

How about a patchwork tutorial for a scrappy quilt block? Here’s one I’ve been playing with over the past few days called Feeling Cross.

I’m not actually feeling cross….far from it. Without a doubt the hardest part of quilt-making is thinking up names for the blasted things. I regularly show my husband and children quilt layouts and drill them for naming inspiration:

“What does this look like to you?” (painful tickles if they answer “a quilt”)

“What does this remind you of?”

“How does this design make you feel?”

Or when those all fail, “Gah! What am I gonna call this???”

After my 13 yr old and I couldn’t come up with a name I figured Feeling Cross was apt and left it at that!

If you’d like a PDF copy of this scrappy quilt block pattern, just fill in the fields below and it will be automatically emailed to you.

Here’s what you’ll need to make one 9.5″ (unfinished) block. Once sewn into a quilt, the block will measure 9″.

First up, let’s sew some HSTs:

Take the 4 dark blue squares and match them with 4 green squares to make 8 HSTs. Press toward the darker fabric and trim to 2.5″.

Then take the two light blue squares and match with the remaining 2 green squares to make 4 HSTs. Press toward the darker fabric and trim to 2.5″.

You can now sew 2 dark blue/green HSTs, 1 light blue/green HST and 1 white 2.5″ square together in a four-patch:

The arrows on the blocks above show the seam pressing directions, so that the seams will nest within the four-patch.

Once you have 4 four-patches, sew them together either side of the shorter sashing pieces. Then sew the two halves together either side of the longer sashing piece:

And there you have it!

I think these blocks make a great scrappy quilt when joined with sashing (and the bonus when using sashing is you don’t have to press your seams a particular way to ensure the blocks nest).

The sashing in the version above is cut at 1.5″ wide to finish at 1″.

I’ve used the same three colours in my blocks, just rotating them through each position in the block to give a point of difference.

A 4 x 5 block layout like the one above would give a 41.5″ x 51.5″ crib quilt.

If you make one of these blocks (or your own scrappy quilt), make sure you let me know!

And again, if you’d like the PDF, you can receive a download below: