Sometimes simplicity is the best thing in life.
A while back I fell in love with a line of fabric and purchased a fat quarter or two of the line. Then a friend saw my fat quarters and the next time she visited she gifted me with more from the line. She had apparently liked the line as well and then decided not to work with it.
The fabric is a busy fabric, lots of patterning in it and while I first thought “stack and whack” or “kaleidoscope pinwheel” for the fabric, I realized I didn’t have the time, nor the energy, to make either. I wanted to ENJOY the fabrics in a quilt, as well as enjoy some mindless piecing time, and that meant KISS (keep it simple stupid).
So I did. I chose to make 9-patch blocks using a light neutral background to highlight the fabric. And the different colorways allowed me to play with the layout to actually show the different colorways by keeping all the blocks from each colorway close together.
By using two similar but darker shades of the background fabric for the sashing and cornerstones, I ended up with a quilt that is simple and yet visually complex (IMHO):
Although the quilt is large enough (if not too large) to use as I originally intended for a throw for the living room, I am now undecided whether to add to the borders and make it large enough for our bed. That would be QUITE a bit of enlarging as we have a king sized bed and right now the quilt is approx 85″ wide. And that would require I get very creative with fabric usage as I only have background fabrics left. But I’m still undecided. In the meantime, I’m enjoying looking at the quilt hanging on the studio design wall every time I walk into the room.
Want to see more quilts this Monday morning? Head over to Patchwork Times and check out the Design Wall Monday posts. It’s a pretty good blog-around tour to follow the links!
you can never go wrong with a Paula fabric!
Well, of course, I adore Paula’s fabrics and that line is my all-time favorite! What a great way to showcase it.
Beautiful fabrics and quilt. Maybe make it bigger to just cover the top of your king size bed. That is what I do.
I really like how this turned out. I am always over thinking everything. And it can really take the fun out of the process. Thanks for showing a beautiful quilt using a simple nine-patch!