I have a lovely free quilt block from the Fat Quarter Shop to share with you today!
Fat Quarter Shop have released a pattern for the Kansas Dust Storm quilt block, which can be used to sew a variety of quilt sizes.
The free pattern has all the Kansas Dust Storm quilt block details. If you’d like a full pattern for a quilted table runner as well as lap, twin and queen quilt sizes, you can also find the full pattern at Fat Quarter Shop* for a very reasonable price.
Or if you’re looking for a lower commitment you could just sew a couple of blocks and turn them into quilted cushions, as I did here.
I sewed my blocks with the lovely fabric line Starry by Alexia Abegg, by Ruby Star Society.* It’s a great collection in a gorgeous modern colour palette.
My fabric choices were: citron (yellow), turquoise, natural and smoke (on the corners).
I ended up making two blocks because I couldn’t decide which fabric placement I liked most (white centre with yellow star or yellow centre with white star). So I solved that one by just making both. *dusts off hands*
For the back of my cushions I used another Ruby Star Society print by Melody Miller called Rattan, in Dark Turquoise (from her Juicy fabric line).
Once I’d sewn my blocks I quilted them with a one inch diagonal grid. I love straight line quilting! So much so that I did a whole post on it with tons of tips, techniques and patterns to use.
I tend to gravitate toward cross-hatch patterns on my cushions (either checker board or diagonal). The dense quilting helps to make the cushion cover quite rigid (in a fabric-y kind of way). This is necessary in our house as cushions are weapons in kid-wars. (4 kids so lots of wars.) My lovely hand-made cushions are regularly smacked into faces, whacked over heads and thrown as a defensive, deflective move. I’m tired of yelling about it, so now I just make the cushions tougher.
But I digress! Back to the quilting. I used my hera marker and longest ruler to mark my first diagonal right down the centre, corner to corner. Then, I offset the ruler an inch at a time from this line, working out either side of the first line. I used a flat, light grey thread as it blends nicely with all the colours.
Once I’d marked all the lines in one direction I machine quilted along them. Then I removed the piece and marked the lines in the other diagonal direction. Once quilted, I squared up and trimmed the panels.
I had a sad time putting in my zippers. I hadn’t done one for so long and was too stubborn to look it up. Don’t be like me, folks, just check your old photos or google it. I must annoy the universe so much, ha.
But I made it eventually and I am SO happy with how these cushions turned out. They are bright, modern and playful, and will really pop against the painted white headboard of our guest bed.
I put them on our grey couch in the lounge room to take some more beauty shots in the afternoon. That’s the best light in our house at that time of day. I was waiting for that sun patch below to move away so I could spread the cushions down the couch.
Of course, the “sun sharks” (our Burmese cats, Tigger and Lulu) did what they do best – circling for sun patches. So there were a few impediments to my taking photos.
But I chose to believe they really love the cushions too.
I hope you also love this Kansas Dust Storm quilt block pattern from the Classic Vintage Pattern Series. You can find it, for free, here at the Fat Quarter Shop website. And if you want the full, multi-sized pattern, you can buy it there, too.
And finally, if you’d like to be notified of this gorgeous Kansas Dust Storm quilt kit (seen below), you can do that here.
Happy sewing!
Kirsty x
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