A Quilt for Bea

After I finished my Secord Orbit Quilt for friends this Spring, Bea requested her own quilt. She wanted something super homespun, which is a bit out of my wheelhouse. I tend to gravitate towards curves and modern shapes. So, she sent me a Pinterest photo of the Barbara Brackman Lincoln Museum Quilt with the brief: “This, but in pastel blues and pinks, with lots of flowers and gingham.” Brackman’s quilt pattern was no longer available to purchase on Etsy. However, its alternating Sixteen-Patch and Sawtooth Star blocks are patchwork mainstays, with innumerable free tutorials online. And, as luck would have it, I’d already taken a class on flying geese (the fiddliest component of the sawtooth star) with Johanna Masko at The Workroom. So, I practiced each block on some old scrap fabric until I became comfortable enough with the techniques to commit to the project. The initial vision was to make a 60 by 72 inch quilt, using 12-inch blocks in a 5 by 6 grid, alternating between the sixteen-patch and the sawtooth star. So, I’d need 30 12-inch-finished quilt blocks, 15 of each type.

Colour

Bea did her own research for fabrics online, gravitating towards some really gorgeous Tilda prints and solids. Luckily, Toronto’s only(?) Tilda stockist is within a healthy walking distance from us. We visited Country Clothesline to choose Tilda fat quarters for the quilt top, a Tilda Harper Pink Floral for the backing, and a Tilda Solid Country Red for the binding (more specific details below). We figured that two fat-quarters would give us two finished quilt blocks, one of each type. So we purchased approximately 31 fat quarters, primarily Tilda (with a few cute bunnies and hens from other lines) and we received a summer sale-gift of 2 fat-eighths which we also incorporated into the quilt. We matched this with an Aurifil Antique Rose thread for stitching the quilt sandwich together. When we brought our fabrics home, I spent some quality time pairing fabrics according to colour. Then, I grouped the fabrics in twelve sets of four and one set of six, so I could mix and match each print between the two types of block.

Construction

The cutting, piecing, and sewing of my quilt top took a full four weekend-days of work. In relatively speedy fashion, I used a Creative Grids Stripology ruler to cut the strips, squares, and rectangles I needed for the blocks. Though, I spent a bit of extra time “fussy cutting” a few of the animal prints so they’d be centred in my squares. As I sewed my 30 blocks, I pieced all of the prints directionally, top down from the 60-inch width. Poodles & Patchwork’s tutorial on proper placement of fabric using directional prints for sawtooth stars was invaluable. I also made myself a little map of how I’d iron the seams of the sixteen-patch and sawtooth blocks so that I could nest each seam together when piecing the 12-inch blocks together. Sewing the squares together into rows and then, the rows together into the basic quilt-top went smoothly. I might have nicked a few points off of the sawtooth stars here and there, but I am calling this a win.

Once I’d finished sewing the basic quilt top, I decided to add a 1.5-inch finished sash of the Tilda Harper Pink Floral backing fabric in a widened tic-tac-toe or #-pattern around the 60×72 top. Then, I added a border of remnant 3-inch finished individual squares, with the same trio of squares at each of the corners (Grey Polka Dots) and on each side of the corner sashing (Blue Duck Nest and Harper Blue Floral).

Basting, stitching, and binding the quilt took another 3 full weekend days. I took the risk of using our medium sized worktable to pin-baste a large quilt at home (after watching a few how-to videos) and had no problems. Large claw-hair-clips worked well to hold the fabric and batting down to my table. And they came in handy to hold together my accordion-folded basted quilt as I tackled the centre of the quilt on my machine. I used a decorative stitch (1342 on my Bernina 475qe) to stitch across the seams of the quilt top in a grid shape, every 3-inches, and along the edges of the sashing. I then bound the quilt in 2.5-inch wide strips of Tilda Country Red, folded and ironed in half. I chose to sew the binding to the quilt back first. I then attached the binding to the quilt front with a visible straight stitch, about 1/16-inch from the edge of the folded binding. Finally, I used the same decorative stitch (1342) to catch that straight stitch on the right-side and cross over onto the quilt top, in keeping with the top-stitching pattern I established on the quilt top, proper.

Then, on to the personalized label….I made a large rectangular label by sewing together two of the last pieces of my unused binding fabric. I used my machine’s very basic cursive embroidery stitching to add a quote from Patti Smith’s M Train as well as my own dedication and signature:

“The transformation of the heart is a wondrous thing, no matter how you get there.” – Patti Smith

After securing the label, temporarily, with a fabric-friendly glue-stick, I hand-sewed it on almost invisibly. Finally, I sent dear Patti into the laundry with some colour catchers for her first bath and tumble dry to get those gorgeous “crinkles.”

Specific Fabric & Construction Details follow the Visual Gallery, Below

Details