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Happy Flower Garden Quilt Along – Week 10 – Finishing Our Quilts

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Welcome to Week 10 of the Happy Flower Garden Quilt Along! This week we will be finishing our quilts!! We will go over Basting, Quilting and Binding our quilts. (Download the Pattern)

Quilt Sandwich:
First you will need to make your Quilt Sandwich. You will need to cut and sew your backing fabric to make it fit under your quilt correctly. Make sure it is at least 3 inches wider than your quilt top on all sides (quilt top size + 6 inches). Trim your selvage edge off after joining your pieces.

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Make your quilt sandwich by first laying down your quilt backing, wrong side facing up. Tape down to a hard surface, making fabric taut. Next lay your batting on top. Smooth out with your hands, do not stretch. Then lay your quilt top right side up, smooth out with your hands.  

Basting Your Quilt: 
Spray baste: My favorite way to baste my quilt is by using Spray Baste! It makes basting so much easier. If you have allergies, this is probably not a good option for you.
Find a place where you can lay out your quilt. Make sure to tape the backing fabric taut to the floor (or large table).
Here’s  great spray baste tutorial by Cluck Cluck Sew: Spray Baste Tutorial

Pin basting: You can use safety pin about 3 to 4 inches apart (about the width of your hand). I like to use the large curved basting pins. This takes a little longer than the spray basting, but is a great option.

Quilting your Quilt:
This step is totally up to you!

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With my Small Block Baby size quilt I chose to quilt from top to bottom ‘organic’ straight lights approximately 1 inch apart. I lined my walking foot so the needle was about 1/2 inch from each seam.

Hand Tie your Quilt: Some prefer to tie there quilt.
Here’s a tutorial on how to do this on Craftsy.

Hand Quilt: Here’s an article that goes over the basics of hand quilting on Craftsy.

Machine Quilt using your Walking Foot: 
Emily Dennis from Quilty Love has a great tutorial on how to Zig zag quilt your quilt with a Walking foot. Click here I love this method of quilting, it give your quilt great texture.

Free Motion Quilting:
Free motion quilting can give you great texture and if you aren’t great at quilting straight lines, this would be great for you. Suzy Williams from Suzy Quilts has a great Free Motion Quilting Tutorial. Click here.

Binding Your Quilt:

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Binding is the fabric strip that goes on the edge of your quilt. It covers all of the unfinished edges and rounds out your quilt.

You will want to make sure to square up your quilt before you attach the binding. Cut off the extra batting around the edges and make sure your sides are straight and corners are squared.

Most quilters will cut 2 /12 inch by width of fabric strips and then sew them together at the ends at a diagonal. Then press the strip in half, so that you are wrapping 2 layers of fabric around all of your edges.

You can machine sew the binding to the front of your quilt and wrap it around to the back and hand stitch it down. Or some prefer sewing the binding to the back of the quilt, wrapping it around to the front and machine stitching it down.

One of my favorite binding tutorials is by Suzy Williams of Suzy Quilts. Go check it out!

I’m so excited to see everyone’s finished quilts!! Make sure to use the hashtag #happyflowergardenqal on Instagram or post your photo’s in the Facebook Group!!

I will be filming a LIVE Video Today, Tuesday July 3rd at 10:15 am PDT (West Coast USA) in the Facebook Group! I will be going over how to put you quilt top together and answering any questions you have. The video will be saved for later viewing.

Facebook Group!

Quilt Along Schedule:

May 1st – Week 1 – Cut your Fabric
May 8th – Week 2 – Make your Half Square Triangles
May 15th – Week 3 – Make your Flying Geese units
May 22nd – Week 4 – Make your Bottom Rectangle Blocks
May 29th – Week 5 – Make half of your Tulip Blocks
June 5th – Week 6 – Make the other half of your Tulip Blocks
June 12th – Week 7 – Make your Corner Tulip Blocks
June 19th – Week 8 – Make your Star Flower Blocks
June 26th – Week 9 – Add Sashing and Cornerstones (Finish Star Flower Blocks if needed)
July 3rd – Week 10 – Baste, Quilt and Bind

Download in my Shop!

Download on Etsy (For EU Customers)

Happy Quilting!
Andrea 🙂

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Sapphire Lane Quilt

IMG_6012My Sapphire Lane Quilt Pattern is now in my shop and ready for download!!

Digital Download (USA)
Digital Download (International customers)

PAPER PATTERN (USA)

When I was designing this pattern, I was trying to create a Large block, when repeated would create an additional pattern. I also didn’t want it to have a lot of half square triangles or flying geese. I also wanted to use this stack of gorgeous Indah Batiks by Me + You Fabrics.

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I decided to go with strip piecing, to make the blocks go together super quick. The pattern also includes the amount of squares needed if you decided not to go with strip piecing or make a scrappy version.

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These are 21 inch finished blocks, so you only need 4 blocks for the baby size!

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I wanted to keep the quilting simple on this one. So I marked out a line 1/2 inch from each seam (top to bottom). Then I quilted down the center, making all my quilting lines about 1 inch apart. I love quilting this close together, it gives the quilt great texture when washed and dried.

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I went with the dark teal as the binding to tie in the center squares. I like to sew my binding to the front of the quilt and then hand sew it to the back.

The weather is finally cooperating here in Washington, so I was able to get a full quilt photo today. The only issue I had was the wind kept wanting to blow my quilt and holder over!

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This pattern has instructions to make a baby, throw, queen and king size quilt!!
When posting pictures of your quilt on social media use the hashtag #sapphirelanequilt or #happycloudcreations I’d love to see your version!!

Download Now!

PAPER PATTERN

Happy Quilting!!

Andrea 🙂

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Arrows Away Quilt – Free Pattern!!

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(Pattern Download is at the bottom of this blog post)

This post may contain affiliate links. I may receive commissions from purchases made through links in this post.

Are you looking for a quick an easy quilt? Maybe you have a baby shower coming up. Or you have a son or daughter going to college soon and you want to give them a special gift. Well, this Arrows Away Quilt is perfect for making a super quick, easy and modern quilt!
The first time I made this quilt, was about a year ago. I love using big blocks! It makes the quilt go together super quick. Also, you can show of gorgeous big prints.

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The first throws size version was slightly smaller than the pattern. After research, I found out more people prefer larger size throw than my original version. My research also showed people prefer a rectangle shaped quilt over a square size quilt. So I added a strip of sashing to the top and bottom of the original design to make it more of a rectangle.

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You can download your FREE Copy here: Arrows Away Quilt Pattern

I’d love to see your Arrows Away quilt! On social media use the hashtag #happycloudcreations

Happy Quilting!
Andrea

 

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Happy Flower Garden Quilt

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Digital Pattern (USA)
Digital Pattern (International)

Who loves flowers? Well, I love flowers, but I do NOT have a green thumb. Even though I should have a green thumb. I took Horticulture and Landscaping classes in High School. I know what I’m supposed to do, but I’d rather be inside sewing. I know it sounds bad, but it is true.

When I started designing my Happy Flower Garden Quilt, it was actually a totally different design. And then I though ‘Hey, that looks like the top of a flower’. So I took that shape and made it into some tulip looking blocks. Since I love flowers so much, I thought this would be the perfect quilt for myself! I’ve been wanting to make myself a quilt for awhile, I just hadn’t picked the right pattern yet.
I have been hoarding some Macramé Fabric by Rashida Coleman-Hale for Cotton + Steel Fabrics. I thought this would be the perfect time to use some of this gorgeous fabric.

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I love how it turned out and am happy I finally cut into this beautiful fabric. I decided to go with a wavy line quilting. I usually go with straight line quilting. First I drew a wavy line from the top to the bottom of my quilt with a water soluble fabric marker. Then I started quilting from the top to the bottom of the quilt. I adjusted my walking foot guide to 1 inch and went along my first quilting wave. It’s not perfect, but I love it! One of my favorite parts is the bright pink backing!

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So if you like flowers too, then this quilt pattern is perfect for you too! It comes with directions for a baby/crib size and throw size quilt. This pattern is great for the adventurous beginner to intermediate. It has a lot of different pieces so keeping organized is key. I like to write my sizes on a little piece of paper and pin it to the stack of corresponding pieces.

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When I tested out my Baby Size quilt I decided to go for a floral sashing! I love this June Bug fabric by Dear Stella Fabric! I can’t wait to finish this one!

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This would be a great quilt to make for a new summer baby or a throw size for a graduate!

You can get your copy of the pattern here:
Digital Pattern (USA)
Digital Pattern (International)

Happy Quilting!
Andrea

Find this Baby size quilt in my shop:

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Colorful Tiles Quilt Pattern, Super Easy Quilt!

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Digital Download (USA)
Digital Download (International Customers)

I love the simplistic design in my Colorful Tiles quilt. I had drawn out this design a while back after I had purchased this awesome backing fabric from the Arrow Flight collections by Michael Miller fabrics. The backing fabric gave me the idea for the front design.

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After I had drawn up this quilt design, I thought, this would be a great pattern for a beginner! I know some new quilters are a little scared of using triangles. I thought this was a great spin on the basic sew a bunch of squares together quilt top. This quilt pattern has color diagrams with step by step instructions for piecing your quilt top, piecing your backing fabric, making your binding and attaching your binding.

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I quilted this quilt in the ‘organic’ straight line quilting, that I love to do! It’s quick and easy. My sewing machine didn’t come with a walking foot, so I had to purchase it separately. I start out by using one of my long seams as a guide. I line my foot up on a middle seam, and quilt from the top to the bottom. Then I set the guide that came with my walking foot to about 1 inch (some quilts I go bigger). I quilt using my guide from my center of my quilt outward. I really love the texture the 1 inch quilting gives my quilts.
I also like to use cotton batting to give it that extra crinkle once it’s washed and dried.

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Whenever I make a quilt pattern I like to test each size the pattern makes. This is my Throw size tester quilt top.

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It has ended up in my finished quilt top pile and has not been finished yet. Hopefully I can work on that pile next month!! I used a variety of Cotton+Steel fabrics for my throw size quilt.
I love this pattern because it was very quick and easy! It went together in a day!

Digital Download (USA)
Digital Download (International Customers)

Happy Quilting!
Andrea