strawberry patch quilt top

This new line, Briar Rose, by Heather Ross for Windham Fabrics is one I’m super excited about, so it was wonderful to receive a surprise charm pack of these prints. I think it only sat overnight before I had dropped everything else to tear into the charm pack.

Heather’s fabrics are absolutely gorgeous! Just look at these prints – those strawberries… I’m in love! Briar Rose is inspired by summer, and indeed it feels so cheerful and bright and transports me right back to my childhood –  sunny days in the berry patch, fields of wildflowers, and picking clover (though all the clover was picked and admired while I was supposed to be playing soccer…)

Did I mention those strawberries? I’m quite certain that I’ll be needing to make a crib sheet out of one of the strawberry prints for the new baby!

I pulled out a bunch of coordinating Michael Miller Cotton Couture solids and started pairing the charms with corresponding solids. My usual goal when I have just one charm pack to work with is to see how large a quilt top I can make, while still featuring the charm squares. Initially I thought I’d add in a bunch of white and use the bright solids as accents, but after seeing the charms along with the solids I decided I liked the idea of the quilt being made up of all these juicy solids.

Then I had to decide how to use the charms – I started thinking about a couple older quilts I had made, coincidentally also out of Heather Ross’s fabrics, and decided to surround each charm with a brightly colored solid. I cut all the blocks down to 8″ square, and was going to sew them all together as is, but ultimately felt it needed a little something more.

So who says that the blocks all have to line up nicely? I added in strips of the solids randomly in between the horizontal rows of blocks and then sewed the rows together. I suppose if you like everything square and straight and all lined up (like my brother! oh wow, I’m linking back to all the old quilts in this post!), this wouldn’t be the quilt for you, but I think it’s pretty fun and I’m excited to use it as a colorful play mat for the new baby.