Four Winds Quilt Top
A few weeks back, I pulled these Heather Bailey Up Parasol prints from my stash to make the Four Winds Quilt by Amber Corcoran of Fancy Tiger Crafts after seeing it on the store's blog. (Whoa! That's a lot of links in one sentence!) I immediately loved the over-sized flying geese and the simple, graphic punch that this quilt carries. I also loved that it would be a good pattern to use some larger scale prints that don't lend themselves to small piecing. I don't know about you, but I have a tendency to fall hard for those prints, especially florals. In the end, they linger on my shelves longer than their small scale counterparts. This quilt pattern is a great opportunity to let them shine! I found an unknown blue solid in my stash and was super excited to get cutting. Unfortunately, the blue ended up being about four inches too short for my purposes. No matter! I went out and bought a longer cut of a lime-y green and like it just as much, maybe even more.
I cut the fabric one night watching TV and then sewed it up the next morning in the matter of a couple of hours. It's fast to come together and the instructions are easy to follow. The geese are pieced using the no-waste method and you need an equal number of each print. I did find that the cutting instructions called for the setting squares in the corners to be slightly larger than necessary so I trimmed them down before I sewed the top together. I'm not sure if that was intentional or errata, but better larger than smaller! The pattern contains three sizes. I made the large throw size and the top finishes at 64 1/2" square. I'm looking forward to quilting it in the next couple of weeks. I think it'll be a great opportunity to practice my free motion skills.
What other quilt patterns have you used successfully with large scale prints? I'm also wondering about cutting fabric...do you tend to cut everything you need for a quilt and then start sewing or cut as you go, mixing the piecing in? Maybe it depends on the project? And am I alone in loving to cut fabric at night so it's ready to go the next day? I think that may be a weird quirk of mine, but would love to hear I'm wrong.
Happy sewing!