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Mabel (in Liberty of London) – a quilt tutorial

Posted on March 2, 2015

Happy Monday! Today I’m pleased to show you this baby quilt made out of lovely Liberty of London fabrics as my stop on the Westwood Acres Liberty of London blog hop.

Westwood Acres offers a fun Liberty of London monthly club, where you receive a selection of 10 Liberty prints each month. Maybe you’re already a member and have some prints waiting to be put to use? Or perhaps you’ve been thinking about signing up for the club? This fun blog hop will hopefully give you some ideas of what you might make to show off your beautiful Liberty prints.

I’ve been enrolled in their Liberty club for about a year now, so I’ve amassed a fair number of pretty prints, and I’m afraid I’m as guilty as many who just admire their Liberty stashes rather than sew with them!

After a lot of thought (and one royally bad quilt top which I’ve opted not to photograph at this time – it’s such a bummer when that happens!), I found my way back to a favorite – the simple plus. I love how it shows off the fabric, and I find it especially nice with small/medium scale prints.

To change it up a bit I decided to give the plusses some pointy ends and separated the plusses with a fun checkerboard design.

I love how Liberty pairs with double gauze (this quilt out of Liberty & Nani Iro is a favorite in our house), so I’ve used this great solid plum double gauze from the Cotton & Steel Bespoke collection.

To add to the softness, I’ve used some extra double gauze on the backing – a great Nani Iro print that paired so well along with a bit of the plum to get it up to size.

Despite needing to get this quilt done quickly for this post, I couldn’t not hand quilt this one! The Liberty, double gauze and super low loft Quilters Dream Request and hand quilting makes for a wonderfully soft and drapey quilt – perfect for a new baby (or for anyone, really! Make additional blocks and make a larger throw for yourself!)
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Want to make one? Keep reading for the tutorial! (Also, I tend to be kind of wordy, but it may help to read through the full tutorial before starting)

Mabel – a Liberty of London baby quilt
size: 38″ x 43″

This fun little baby quilt is a great way to showcase some favorite fabrics, beautiful Liberty of London prints in this case. It’s made up of two blocks, alternating to create this great pattern. Have fun playing around with many different background color pairings!

Note: 1/4″ seam allowance used throughout

Materials:
Solid A (the dark plum shown in the sample quilt): 1 1/4 yards
Solid B (the lighter purple solid in the sample quilt): 1/2 yard
Liberty of London prints: 15 prints (to make each plus a unique print) measuring 9″ x 9 1/2″. (This could be cut from any of the sizes offered through the club – a fat sixteenth, fat eighth, or fat quarter.)

Cutting:
From Solid A, cut 6 strips measuring 3″ x width of fabric (wof). Subcut into 14 – 3″ squares per strip (a total of 71 – 3″ squares are needed for this quilt). Cut remaining fabric into 6 – 4 1/2″ x wof strips. Subcut into 9 – 4 1/2″ squares per strip (a total of 49 – 4 1/2″ squares are needed for this quilt). Cut each of the 49 – 4 1/2″ squares in half diagonally and set aside.

From Solid B, cut 6 strips measuring 3″ x wof. Subcut into 14 – 3″ squares per strip (a total of 75 squares are needed for this quilt)

From each Liberty of London print, cut 2 – 3″ squares, 1 – 3″ x 8″ strip, and 4 – 3 1/2″ x 2 1/4″ rectangles. See cutting diagram below:

Block A – the plus block:

Each block uses 4 – 3″ squares of fabric A, along with 2 – 3″ squares and 1 – 3″ x 8″ strip of one Liberty print. Position the pieces as shown and sew the squares together in each of rows 1 and 3. Iron seams.

Sew rows together to create an 8″ block.

Note: I recommend assembling all the plus blocks first and positioning them on a design wall/floor. It will be important to know where the blocks will be positioned in relation to each other so that the printed triangle points in Block B match the corresponding prints in Blocks A.

Block B – pointed checkerboard block:

Assemble triangle pieces:

Mark the centerpoint of each 3 1/2″ x 2 1/4″ Liberty print (measure in and mark 1 3/4″ from one edge – you can barely see my blue marking at the center top of the fabric above)

Trim each piece into a triangle shape by aligning your ruler from the top centerpoint to the bottom corner. Repeat for opposite side.

Sew one of the halves of the 4 1/2″ square (fabric A) to one diagonal side of the printed triangle. Align fabric A as shown, so that fabric A extends at least an inch past the base of the triangle.

Iron and trim excess in line with the printed triangle.

Repeat for opposite side.

Trim to 3″ square. Repeat to make the remaining triangle blocks.

Note: You’ll see that where Block B falls in the corner of the quilt or along an edge, you will only need 2 or 3 triangle blocks, and consequently you’ll find that you may need to make 2, 3 or 4 triangle blocks per print, depending on how you lay out your quilt. Deciding on layout before sewing these blocks will save you from making some you may not need!

(Note: The layout shown above is for a block with 4 points – if you are making a block that only requires 2 or 3 points, use a solid 3″ square of Fabric A in place of a triangle block).

This block uses 4 – 3″ triangle blocks alternating with 5 – 3″ squares of Fabric B, as shown above.

Sew squares together in rows and iron seams

Sew rows together to make an 8″ block

Alternate Blocks A and B according to your layout and sew together blocks in each row. Iron seams. Sew rows together to complete your quilt top.

Be sure to check out the other stops on the blog hop for more Liberty inspiration!

February 24th: Kick Off! <a href=”http://www.acraftyfox.net/“>A Crafty Fox (here!)</a><a
February 25th: <a href=”http://redredcompletelyred.blogspot.com/“>Astrid at Red, Red Completely Red</a>
February 26th: <a href=”http://sotakhandmade.blogspot.com/“>Svetlana at Sotak Handmade</a>
February 26th: <a href=”http://www.abrightcorner.com/“>Andy at A Bright Corner</a>
February 27th: <a href=”http://quarterinchmark.blogspot.com/“>Chase at Quarter Inch Mark</a>
March 1st: <a href=”http://www.simplegirlsimplelife.com/“>Emily at Simple Girl Simple Life</a>
March 2nd: <a href=”http://filminthefridge.com/“>Ashley at Film In The Fridge</a>
March 3rd: <a href=”http://www.freshlypieced.com/“>Lee at Freshly Pieced</a>
March 4th: <a href=”http://blueisbleu.blogspot.com/“>Audrie at Blue is Bleu</a>
March 5th: <a href=”http://www.acraftyfox.net/“>Amanda at A Crafty Fox</a>

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A selection of Liberty prints was sent to me by Amanda for this project (though unfortunately these were wasted in that aforementioned unfortunate quilt!). I would have participated regardless – I think my love of Liberty is well known!

Posted in Fabric, Finished Quilts, Quilts, Tutorials | Tagged baby quilt, bespoke double gauze, handmade, liberty of london, liberty of london monthly club, liberty tana lawn bundle of the month club, mabel, nani iro, plus quilt, westwood acres | 10 Comments

through the window

Posted on February 24, 2015

Spring is still a ways off around here, but that doesn’t stop me from dreaming of it daily. Right now it’s just lots of snow out my window, but hopefully in a few months there will be flowers (er, I’m not really sure actually! this will be our first spring in this new house, so I’m not sure what’s out there…)

Until then, I’ll gaze upon these pretties — this gorgeous new line is by Umbrella Prints, and is aptly named Flowers. I have loved, and collected!, the beautiful prints by Umbrella Prints for years now, and have used pieces in many quilts, and when Amy and Carly asked if they could send me some of their newest quilting cotton line, Flowers, I said yes right away. This line includes 10 beautiful organic cotton prints in a really beautiful mix of colors – light pinks, peaches and coral reds paired with a great gold, some grays (and gray greens) and a touch of black.

I added in a few prints from their previous mini collection and just a couple additional black and white prints to round it all out. When thinking about designs, I was reminded of a vintage quilt I had pinned, and drew up a couple designs inspired by this vintage quilt. Ultimately I came to this design – lots of half square triangles separated by this uneven grid.

It seems it should have been an easy one to put together, but no. I think I felt the pressure to make sure the design showed off these gorgeous prints, so it sat on the design wall for quite a while as I second guessed all my choices — were these solids right? should the triangles point the other way? what if they all pointed one direction? or opposite directions?

I mixed it all up, moved everything around, and in the end came back to my original design. Ah..

The only bummer about the quilt top is that it used up nearly all these beautiful prints! I’m quite certain I’ll have to order myself another bundle (the coral red in this print is the perfect color…oh, and the hearts!…)

Thank you, Amy and Carly, for giving me the opportunity to sew a quilt with your beautiful new prints!

Posted in Fabric, Posts about Quilts | Tagged australian fabric, flowers, half square triangles, handmade, quilt top, umbrella prints | 19 Comments

Macaroni twist quilt

Posted on February 17, 2015

Don’t mind me while I gaze at these photos and dream about green grass, leaves, and warm temperatures! In the midst of the arctic temperatures we’re experiencing now, it’s kind of nice to post these sunny summer photos.

I made this quilt last summer and submitted it to Love Patchwork & Quilting. I was happy to hear they were interested in having it in an upcoming issue (though a little sad that I’d have to wait all this time to show it to you!). This issue (issue 18) is now available, and what a wonderful surprise it was for me to see my quilt on the cover!

The quilt is a fun one to make, and rather quick! The best part is that this is just one of many possible layouts – I had two favorites – this and one other, but went with this layout because I really liked the diagonal pattern. I liked to refer to it as Macaroni Necklace, since those diagonals reminded me of the colorful elbow noodles strung on yarn. I made this quilt out of all the Cotton & Steel basics and used an out of print white on white print for the background.

The backing is another Cotton & Steel print along with a skinny strip of pieces of the prints from the front. I decided to try to emphasize the diagonal lines by quilting with straight lines on the diagonal.

Instructions for putting together this quilt are provided in the magazine, along with instructions for matching pillow covers. You wouldn’t know it from this photo, but Hazel’s delight here was in discovering that the backing of these pillows features her favorite C+S tiger cat print. She still loves that one! (And I still need to make her that crib sheet!)