Traditional Quilter with a Twist: Quilt 1- Connections

When you hear someone said, they will make a quilt entirely from their own stash, you right away assumed right they must have a large selection of colours or a pile and pile of fabrics scattered around their quilting room. A dream world for any quilters. But if you're like me, your selection of fabric is small. Mine can be store in about three to four bins. It never stopped me to beco me creative with what I had at hand. My frustration came to an end when I realized that my stash supplies only had the medium and dark fabric of the same tones. Very little of light or accents. With that in mind, I need to purchase only fabrics that will accent my stash.

Connections are a good example of how you can play with your fabric. Laura Gilvin designed this easy pattern called Connection. You can purchase the digital pattern from Fons & Porter

For this project, I selected dotted fabrics. It will give my top a whimsical effect. The designer suggested solid fabric. It's your personal choice. In the past, the more I played with print fabrics, the more visionary I became. Few friends asked if my quilt was from a kit when I told them I put that fabric together myself, they are impressed. That really boosted my confidence as a quilter and want to explore more colours combination with print fabric I already have. How about you. Do you find it hard to use only your stash as a starting point?

My DIY Quilting Planner is at work! All that preparation wasn't in vain for once. Yeah! First I used it for the quilt diagram, to help me choose my fabric and colours for this project. Then I leaned the binder against the wall, this time with the page referring to the fabric cutting. When it came to sewing, I removed the page for the assembling and brought it to my sewing machine area. So worth planning ahead.

My fabric was already washed and starched and was able to precut all my squares, strips, and white pieces for this project. One thing I changed my mind is the medium grey fabric wasn't working for me and opted for a lighter blue Batik. Last-minute change does happen.

It's a good idea to always put aside the remaining pieces of fabrics; whatever you store them in a Ziplock bag or in a small box, at less until your quilt is completely finished. You never know if you'll need it.

Before you sew or press your strip-set together, I would highly recommend you watch a video on YouTube or tutorial on that subject as a reminder or if you never did that technique before. McCall's Quilting Blog as a good video available, check it out.

After your strip-sets are sewn together, you'll most likely have to cut them again.

Sewing your strip-sets all at once according to the diagram pattern is easy and efficient. Make sure you follow the direction.

In this pattern, you learned how to align rows. With that in mind, I marked the center of my blocks with a Fons &Porter white chalk marker.

Very important that your seams are all pressed in the same direction. Not just to the right or all to the left, but in a way that it lays flat or pressed toward the darker side of your fabric. Do it the same way throughout the back of your quilt. I have pressed all my seamed toward the blocks and not toward the white sashing. It's consistent and that's what you're looking for.

When all my rows were done, I laid them on the floor to see the outcome. If you have a design wall that would be better, then the floor. If you noticed, on the left of my quilt, there are green- paint on my blocks which I marked from #1-8 because when I sew, I can easily mix my row arrangement. This way, I know where they go. Even with my rows marked, I changed a few around.