The Expanding Quilt

     I love the FedEx delivery person.  We have never met, but when my doorbell rings and nobody is there, I always find a wonderful surprise that has been left for me on my doorstep.  

    Earlier this month a package with these beauties arrived.  This fabric line is Scarlet Stitches and White Linen by Color Principal, from Henry Glass Fabrics.

     As part of my Brand Ambassador duties for Jaftex I receive a package every few weeks.  The package always includes cuts of one of their not-yet-released fabric lines.  This bundle also included several spools of Aurifil thread!  How lucky can a girl get?  It is my responsibility to make those fabrics into something beautiful that will show off the fabrics and hopefully have you running to your local quilt shop to buy the fabrics so that you can do the same.

        I always like to check out the FREE pattern on the fabric company website before I begin.  I want to make sure that whatever I design is totally different than what is already available.  The free project for Scarlet Stitches and White Linen is absolutely beautiful!  It was designed by Heidi Pridemore and it features the panel print in those center squares.  You can download this pattern from the Henry Glass website by clicking here:  FREE PATTERN  The free project is large and complicated, so I decided mine should be small and simple.  The group is red/white/grey but the grey has a blue tint.  I just happen to have a bolt - yes a whole bolt - of a Henry Glass basic in the perfect shade of light blue.  I also decided that the pieces should be large so that you can tell the prints apart.  I had 10 fabrics to work with, 5 dark background and 5 light background.  Instant checkerboard!

    Some quick computer work and I had a plan!  Six large light background blocks surrounded by dark background blocks with connector blocks using that addition of blue.  I had to be careful about the fabric placement in those connector blocks but that would be easy.  Except.....

Once I had those pieces on my design wall I liked this project, a lot.  I had plenty of fabric, so why not make a few more blocks?  The simple six blocks became twelve.  

The "small and simple" plan went out the window.  All of those connector blocks were already made to match the fabrics on all 4 sides.  I went back to the computer, then graph paper and it was more than a bit of frustration.  It was worth it, because this project deserved to be a larger quilt.  The quilt looked great on my design wall.  But, I still had fabric left......

Then twelve became twenty!

Back to the drawing board once again.  My goal was to plan the placement of the fabrics in relationship to the connector blocks so that I didn't have to rip or remake any of those connectors.  It worked!  It took every last inch of fabric, but I was able to make it happen.  I am very happy with this much, much larger than originally planned quilt.

    

 The quilt has an understated Americana look and is perfect for display on all of the summer holidays.  Special thanks to Chris, my neighbor across the street, for the loan of his front porch for this pix.