briar rose strawberry patch quilt

Well, I must say, Heather Ross definitely has a winner with this upcoming line, Briar Rose (available this July)! It’s been a long time since we’ve had the chance to get Heather Ross fabrics on quilting cotton, and this certainly does not disappoint!

It’s produced by Windham Fabrics, and from what I can tell from these 5″ charms, it’s printed on a really nice basecloth which will be wonderful for both quilting and clothing.

I was so pleased to receive a charm pack from Windham Fabrics, and wasted no time getting it sewn up into a little quilt. As I mentioned previously, my goal was to try to use the charm squares to make a decent sized quilt, so to that end, I added in a bunch of Michael Miller Cotton Couture solids in coordinating colors.

A desperate plea provided me with an extra piece of that great strawberry print, which I used for the majority of the backing, adding in a patchwork strip of leftover solids on either side. I even snuck in a little bit of the selvage which has a cute little strawberry on it (no photo, unfortunately!)

As I was thinking about how to quilt it, I remembered a pillow I had seen recently which was printed with an elongated hexagon/honeycomb design. I kept thinking how it would be fun to try to quilt a similar design, and what better quilt than this one with its honeycomb bee print? The photo above shows the quilt before washing, where you can sort of see that I drew out a grid and several various marking lines with washable marker to help keep everything in line.

It’s a straight line design, which requires a bit of starting, stopping and pivoting, so maybe not the fastest quilting, but certainly fun, and I’m really pleased with the final look. I could put together a little diagram if you’d like to see how it was quilted. Elongated hexagon tutorial can be found here.

I’m really excited to see the new baby laying on this fun quilt, but before then, you might be able to catch a little glimpse of it at Quilt Market if you’re going!