Blog Hop – 3and3quarters

Today I get to share with you a very special quilt I made in collaboration with the Fat Quarter Shop using their exclusive 5″x10″ Jolly Bar pre-cuts!

The range I was given to play and create with was the beautiful Polka Dots & Paisleys by Minick & Simpson for Moda Fabrics. Full of gorgeous florals, paisleys, polka dots and rich Americana colours, it was such a lovely range to work with and discover all of the intricate patterns and shapes within the prints.

One of the things I found working with the Jolly Bars is just how versitile they are to work with! I found it so hard to narrow down the perfect block to show off how effortless they are to design and sew with! My thoughts were; ‘Do I cut them half and do a simple strip-piece quilt?’ ‘Should I cut the Jolly Bar into rectangles and make it into a tumbler block?’ ‘Do I stick with a simple HST?’ The list was endless! Also, one of the other great things I love about the Jolly Bars is that each range featured comes with an exclusive pattern to make with it! All of the hard parts of wondering what to make from them has all been taken care of! Yay! So all you need to do is pick the range you love the most, make the super-easy pattern inside and you’ve got a beautiful quilt that you’ll love forever!

The quilt I chose to design and make features a very simple variation of the Open Window block. To make it, I simply cut the 42 Jolly Bars in half, paired them with a white solid fabric, then stitched and trimmed the 5″ squares into 84 4.5″ half-square triangles. I then pieced together three matching HSTs of four different prints around an 8.5″ white centre square to complete the block. I made twelve blocks all together, with a few HSTs left over and then added a 4.5″ sashing around the edges to complete the quilt top.

I used a beautifully soft and luscious bamboo/cotton blend batting (a new favourite!) and a creamy blender fabric for the backing. I then quilted it by stitching two lines either side of all of the seam lines, creating an echo type pattern within the open spaces of the blocks. To finish it up, I used a matching red solid fabric to bind the edges.

The finished size of the quilt measures: 57″x73″ or 145cmx185cm.

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If you’re curious to know how to piece an Open Window block together, then feel free to check out the following tutorial I made for my YouTube channel!

Measurement & cutting info…

From the white solid fabric cut –

x1: 8.5″ square for the centre of the block

x8: 5″ squares to be made into HSTs

From four print fabrics cut –

x2: 5″ squares from each one to be made into HSTs

Follow the steps in the video to learn how to piece together this block! All seams are a 1/4″.

FINAL BLOCK SIZE: 16.5″x16.5″ (42cmx42cm)

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I would like to extend a big thank you to the team at the Fat Quarter Shop for inviting me to join this blog hop and to be given the opportunity to work with such a beautifully rich fabric range! It was an absolute pleasure!

Happy Sewing, Friends!

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been having so much fun choosing, playing, cutting, stitching and just simply swooning over all of these beautiful Cotton Supreme Solids by RJR Fabrics in preparation to join their RJR Supreme Cotton Fabric Blog Hop today!

As soon as I was asked to be a part of it, out came the quilting books and Pinterest searches as I dove straight into planning what I could do to show case as many of the beautiful colours in the range as I could! And once I clasped eyes on the Crown of Thorns block, I knew instantly that it was the perfect one to use!

Now, the idea to create this mini quilt like I have was purely down to the fact that I couldn’t choose between all of the wonderfully vibrant colours I had available to pick from! I was like a little kid with a box full of scrumptious chocolates as I opened the Colour Card that was sent to me! As I unfolded and unfolded and unfolded the card, my eyes lit up every time at the abundant amount of fabrics lined up in perfect colour order. (I’m quite sure a big, ‘Oh, wow!!’ escaped my lips as well!) So because of that, I chose four different variants of four different colours in the range, from lightest to darkest, along with three neutral shades of white, cream and grey to help showcase my colour choices.

To be honest, I had never used Cotton Supreme Solids by RJR Fabrics before, so I was eager to know what the quality would be like. And wow! Was I impressed! The fabrics are so beautiful! Super-soft to handle, the colours are insanely vibrant and true, they’re easy to press and cut and, the best bit, they sew like a dream through the sewing machine! What more could you ask for?! They’re absolutely perfect for any fabric project you could ever dream of making!

I think the thing that I loved most about using these fabrics was the gentle softness in their handle. You know how sometimes you can buy those cheap, nasty like solids that feel rough and stiff and the weave is just slightly more open than it should be…? Well, the Cotton Supreme Solids are the complete opposite to that! They’re like luxury to touch and use, and feel almost satin-like between your fingers…Hmm, heaven! And because of this, they were such a pleasure to sew with! I found it so easy to press, trim and piece the fabrics exactly the way that I wanted without having any unnecessary fuss with fraying edges or unwanted movement when it came to quilting it. And it’s those kind of experiences that make quilting the best thing ever!!

For the quilting, I chose to explore a design I had never really attempted before: the grid! I quilted the lines kind of off-set to the Crown of Thorns block just to add a little bit of interest and movement to the surface of the quilt. It also gave me a great excuse to put to use my new Clover Hera Marker and to see if all the fuss around it was worth it! (And it is, by the way!) Being able to mark my lines before quilting them gave me a lot more confidence in being able to sew a decent straight line while keeping the grid pattern perfectly spaced and even!

Now, if you yourself want to try out these fabrics and see just how wonderful they are to use, RJR Fabrics have hooked me up with a Fat Quarter bundle with every single Cotton Supreme Solid fabric that I’ve used in my mini quilt to GIVEAWAY to you!! Yay!

To enter, all you have to do is comment on this post with what you would love to make with these fabrics if you’re the lucky winner! The giveaway is open internationally and the most creative answer will win! THIS GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED!

And also, because I’ve had so much fun making this little mini, I’ve made a tutorial for my YouTube channel showing you how to make it!

Enjoy!

Measurement and cutting info:

To make the quilt top you will need to cut from the white fabric:

– x16: 5″ squares

– x5: 4.5″ squares

– x2: 16″ squares

From the grey, cut:

– x4: 4.5″ squares

And then from each of the 16 colours, cut:

– x1: 5″ square

FINAL BLOCK SIZE: 20.5″x20.5″ approx.

To make the rest of the quilt you will need:

– x1: 36″x36″ square of backing fabric

– x1:36″x36″ square of cotton batting

– 12″xWOF cream fabric for the binding (cut into x5: 2.5″ strips)

FINAL QUILT SIZE: 30″x30″ approx.

Cotton Supreme Solid Fabrics I used:

Optical White (33): quilt top and backing

Graystone (155): quilt top centre

Linen White (32): binding

Colours – from lightest to darkest in colour groups:

Banana Cream Pie (336) / Carrot (131) / Mandarin (159) / Chilli Pepper (49)

Meadowland (352) / Grass is Always Greener (347) / Aloe Verde (349) / Shamrock (109)

Pool Side (327) / Turks & Caicos (292) / Bora Bora (328) / Denim (106)

Hydrangea (214) / Opera Mauve (123) / Amethyst (215) / Grape (121)

May we just take a minute to appreciate how awesome some of the names of these fabrics are! I think my favourite would have to be ‘Pool Side’! It’s currently winter in Australia and I couldn’t think of anything better than being pool side, drinking up the glorious warmth of the summer sun and watching the light sparkle on the surface of the water! Ooo, heaven!

If you’re keen on giving this mini quilt a go, feel free to share your results with me on Instagram, Twitter or on my Facebook page!

Also, if you would like to know more about the RJR Supreme Cotton Fabric Blog Hop and are curious to see what other quilters have made using these fabrics, check out their Facebook page!

A big thanks to Laura and the team at RJR Fabrics for inviting me to join this Blog Hop! It’s the first one I’ve ever been a part of and I’ve had so much fun playing and making with such lovely fabrics!

Happy Sewing, Friends!

PS. Don’t forget to enter the giveaway!!!

Tag: Blog Hop