This quilt started with an inspiration. I had the opportunity to purchase fabric from an estate of a woman who was a prolific seamstress. While I purchased many gorgeous fabrics, the one I used as inspiration for this quilt really stood out.
I checked online and found other similar fabrics by the same company Timeless Treasures, but not this exact one.
This King Size Quilt was designed in Electric Quilt 7. I am sharing all the information I have on how I designed this quilt so that anyone can make it for FREE.
Ultimately this quilt measures 115″ x 115″ after I trimmed the blocks down a bit – how you piece could make your quilt’s size differ
This is actually quite a basic design which consists of a single block – the Log Cabin. I spent a long time moving the blocks around and turning them this way and that until I came up with the layout you see here.
What makes this quilt so effective is the placement of the blocks, they create a 3-D effect.
The image above is the actual print-out from Electric Quilt 7. Please note that I chose similar fabrics from the stock list in EQ7 to represent the fabrics that I ultimately chose. It is very important when doing this to choose fabrics with similar values so that the effect is the same. It is OK to choose a different pallet (I choose browns, greens and blues).
Blocks:
Below is a representation of the block used. This was designed as a 12″ x 12″ finished block.
The image above included example fabrics and is not those used in the final quilt.
The cutting directions are (in inches):
(A) 2×11
(B) 2×9.5
(C) 2×12.5
(D) 2×8
(E) 2×6.5
(F) 2×5
(G) 2×3.5
(H) 3.5×3.5
There are a total of 64 blocks; the blocks are 8 rows of 8 blocks. Around these blocks are two borders. The borders pictured are 3” and 5” wide respectively.
Borders:
I did not do mitered corners. I was a bit excited to get this done, so didn’t take the extra time to do the math. Instead, I figured out what fabric I had left in the two border colors and made them as large as I could. I measured 3X across the quilt to get my border length to ensure they would not be wonky when quilting.
Quilting:
I looked at this quilt for some time to come up with a quilting plan that I liked. Because it was not necessarily symmetrical, I knew that whatever I did would create more than one secondary pattern. Ultimately, I decided on splitting the block into two designs.
- The tan side held two feathers
- The blue side was a variable line that started at the middle and ended at the point.
This created some interesting intersections that I love.
The borders were done in two designs:
- The brown border was a filigree type design
- The blue crane border was segmented into triangles with double feathers similar to the blocks.
The color thread chosen was #3056 (rusty) OMNI by Superior Threads. This burnt brown color added visibility to my quilting on the top of the quilt.
Binding:
Because I really hate waste, after I had done all the piecing and quilting and it was time to bind I had to make a decision. I either had go buy more fabric or use what I had which was not enough for one color to bind. Of course I refrained from purchasing more. Instead, I cut the green and blue into 44” x 2.25” strips and alternated them. As you can see by the final images, the quilt turned out very well and I didn’t have to incur any additional expense.
Additional Quilt (not on purpose):
Have you ever gotten so excited about a project that you made a crucial mistake? I sure did. Instead of waiting for ALL my blocks to be complete and then trimming to the smallest one, I started trimming right away – and trimmed too much. Because of this, I had 24 smaller blocks. Never fear, I just set them aside and created a corresponding lap quilt. This can be used on a sitting room chair or a number of other uses.
My plan is to quilt this one the same as the larger version. Because of a shortage of corresponding fabrics, I will most likely have smaller borders though!
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