Oh my gosh, you guys -- I'm so smitten with a new quilt idea that I'm tempted to mask up and head to my not-quite-local quilt shop right NOW to buy fabric. Never mind that I'm still slogging away at the long arm machine on my Spirit Song quilt, or that my son's Beware the Ishmaelites sampler is still languishing, untouched and barely begun, and my Modern Baby Clam Shells quilt has been cut out and waiting for me to start piecing it for an entire year... I have eight works in progress at the moment, and I really have no business starting something new.
None of that stops me from wanting to start making THIS quilt:
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| 44 x 44 Baby Version of BERNINA's Summer Sparkle Quilt-Along |
Bernina has been hosting a quilt-along on their We All Sew blog featuring a pattern called "Summer Sparkle," designed by Faith Jones of Fresh Lemons Quilts. I love Faith's aesthetic and have admired her work for years. The pattern for this quilt is available on the We All Sew site for FREE here.
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| 50 x 60 Summer Sparkle, Designed by Faith Jones for BERNINA |
What do I love about Summer Sparkle? First of all, I'm a huge sucker for star quilts. I LOVE stars. Second, I love how Faith has taken the simple, traditional sawtooth star block and given it a fresh, contemporary feel with her use of a gradient color scheme and her asymmetrical alternate block based on a 5-patch grid. Plus, these 10" blocks should go together fairly quickly and the assembly of the top won't be a hassle, either, since there are no seams needing to be matched.
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| No Points to Match at Block Intersections Means Speedier Assembly of Quilt Top |
So I love the quilt pattern and think I might want to make it, but of course I had to tweak it first in my EQ8 quilt design software. I stuck with the 10" block size to keep things ruler-friendly for rotary cutting, but I reduced the number of blocks from 30 to 16. This will significantly reduce the required investments of time (and fabric) for making my version of Faith's quilt.
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| Recoloring in EQ8, Using Pinterest Images for Color Inspiration |
I also wanted to change up the colorway in my version. Faith's version in pinks and blues is lovely, but I'd rather not spend time making a quilt that looks exactly like everyone else's. I have a Pinterest board called Favorite Color Combinations that I refer to sometimes for palette inspiration, which is what I was doing in the screen shot above. I could do the same thing "in real life" at the quilt shop, by choosing a beautiful large scale, multicolor print bolt of fabric and then matching solid bolts of fabric to the colors in the print.
To bring my quilt up to a 44" x 44" size that would make a good baby gift, I added asymmetrical 2" borders with corner stones on just two diagonal corners. These borders have the added benefit of moving all of my star points away from the quilt binding, so I don't have to worry about cutting off star points when I bind the finished quilt. Win-Win!
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| The Colors I Ended Up With |
I saved my design and printed out my yardage and rotary cutting instructions, but I'm loathe to go buy more fabric for another project that I might not actually get started on, ever. I might just hang onto this one and pull it out the next time I have need of a baby quilt.
Is anyone else participating in Bernina's Summer Sparkle QAL? Maybe I just need to see some other versions to make up my mind. For now, I'm headed back to my long arm to continue quilting Spirit Song.
Stay safe and happy stitching, everyone!
I'm linking up today's post with:
MONDAY
TUESDAY
