Blue Elephant Stitches

So I had this yummy bundle of 6 fat quarters burning a hole in my sewing room table. I came up with this simple, kinda wild and sweet baby quilt that exactly uses these fat quarters, nothing more, nothing less.

The quilt top finishes at about 37"x41", just perfect for a baby quilt. I had originally planned to make just pinwheel blocks, but to maximize these 6 fat quarters, I decided to add a strippy border to the right hand side with the left over pieces.

And, I've made up a simple tutorial for you to make this same quilt!

Before I go farther, I just want to share that this bundle below, which is just the right amount of fat quarters, would be stunning in this pattern! Edited to add: it's actually 8 fat quarters, which means you could make the quilt a bit bigger.

Tutorial for Pinwheel Quilt

Cut each of your six fat quarters exactly like the diagram above. Depending on the exact width of your fat quarters, you will need the whole 18", so cut carefully. The pieces labeled 'Side Border' can be set aside for now.

For each of your 12 pinwheel blocks, you'll make pairs of four blocks, each with two matching squares as shown above.

a.) Layer two squares together, one of each print, right sides together.

b.) With a fabric marker, draw a diagonal line from corner to corner on the top piece.

c.) Now sew along both sides of this line with a 1/4" seam.

d.) Do this for both blocks sets.

e.) Cut carefully right along your marked line.

f.) Press seams open.

g.) Trim those little ears off the corner. (or don't if you're lazy!)

Now you should have four half square triangle blocks to lay out like shown above and sew together, again with a 1/4" seam.

Press seams open.

Make all 12 pinwheel blocks like this.

Arrange your pinwheel blocks in a way that pleases you, and sew them together in a grid that is 3 blocks across and 4 blocks down.

Side Border:

Take all those extra pieces that are 6" wide. You can make them as skinny or as thick as you like, just leave their width at 6". I cut mine assorted from 2.5"-4".

Sew them all together in one long row, with their 6" sides together. Keep sewing till you have the same length as the length of your pinwheel top.

After you've pressed all the seams, sew this long strip on to the right hand side of your pinwheels.

Your quilt top is complete!

Oh! One more thing! Fabric Spark is offering to send one of you a fat quarter bundle just like mine above. Here's what you need to do to enter:

Visit Fabric Spark and look in the Precuts Section. Come back here and tell me which bundle you would choose. (it doesn't have to be mine!)

On Monday I'll randomly choose one of you to receive this bundle.

GIVEAWAY CLOSED:

Blog posts about fabric....love 'em?...or hate em?...

I guess I kinda like them, so you can just skip this if it's not your thing!

If you read regularly, you may have picked up the fact that over the last year I've become faintly bothered by my large stash, and have seriously cut down on fabric purchases.

I say 'cut down', since there have still been a few pieces trickling in...:) But seriously, I went some months without a single fabric purchase! Shocking!!

So, it feels good to whittle down one's stash and at the same time exercise self restraint in purchasing those 'must have' fabric lines. When a new fabric collection comes out from a favorite designer (for me it's Denyse Schmidt, or Anna Maria Horner) I tend to have this panicky feeling. What if I miss out on that one fabric that would end up being one of my faves? What if everyone snaps it up right away and once I decide I really love it, it's all gone?

Anyways, I've been practicing restraining myself on these! And it works pretty good! For example, from both the above mentioned designers I have ordered ZERO fabric from their last two collections each! (Confession: just remembered that I bought one design roll of Denyse's Florence collection).

But, as the above photo suggests, there have been a few purchases here and there, so thought I'd show you a few of my recent acquisitions.

The prints above are from Hawthorne Threads, the leopard print is an Anna Maria Horner favorite that I was loathe to run out of. The other four were prints that I just thought looked good. (And I love each one of them!)

The two on the left are from Riley Blake's Rocket Age found here. The two on the right are from Heather Bailey's Lottie Da collection here. Blue Leopard Print is from Anna Maria Horner's Field Study right here.

Now this fun grouping comes from a new Canadian shop called FabricSpark! I'm so excited about this shop because it has such a clean modern feel. I love the fabrics she is choosing to sell! I curated this bundle and was sent these fat quarters to play with. You can buy this exact bundle in her shop right here. I can't wait to make a quilt with these fat quarters, just waiting for inspiration to strike...

The last two photos show fabric purchased from LiMaSews on Etsy. The top two were ones that I knew I loved and wanted larger pieces of, so I think I bought 1.5 yards of each. The bottom is a fat quarter bundle of Meadow by Leah Duncan. Can't wait to sew with these summery colors!

So this is not a complete list of every fabric I've purchased in the last year! There are some more that are coming to mind right now. Maybe I'll show them to you in finished quilts!