My dear friend Ashley and I have been planning a quilt-along for a while now, and I’m so excited the time has come to announce it! If you’ve seen Ashely’s blog lately, you know she has caught the quilting bug, and has made some gorgeous quilts! Well, I think she passed the bug on to me when she asked if I wanted to team up with her for this. It has been 6 years since I’ve made a quilt, so I’m really excited to get going!

I’ll be making a ruffle-top quilt, and Ashley is making a zig-zag quilt. You can pick whichever style of quilt you’d like to make, and follow along! (Check out her announcement and supply list here). We would just love to have you! There will be a link party at the end of the month for you to showcase the quilt you made with us, and a fun fabric giveaway from Riley Blake, open to all readers.

I don’t have my quilt all finished yet… I will be quilting along with you! (I will update this post asap as soon as I have a picture of my progress so far).
The fabric I’m using is from the Riley Blake Verona line.

But just so you can get an idea of what this will look like… the inspiration all comes from Andrea at The Train to Crazy. She made a duvet cover using this technique, and I thought it was just brilliant! Thank you Andrea for such a wonderful idea.

I am using her duvet tutorial as inspiration for my quilt. I am changing the measurements of the squares, because I want to use fat quarters which will highly cut down the amount of time spent cutting, and will help ensure straight lines. Then I will be adding instructions on how to add borders, binding, and quilting it all together. But definitely all the credit goes to Andrea for the ruffle-top idea!

Supplies:

To make this a lap-sized quilt, I’ve estimated the amount of fabric you will need. I am using a fat quarter bundle, which in the Riley Blake collections, comes with 22 blocks of fabric, sized at 18×22 inches. You can’t use a layer cake (10×10 squares) or charm pack (5×5 squares) for this project, because you need rectangles instead of squares. By using fat quarters, we’ll spend a lot less time cutting fabric, and the lines will be more precise! We will be trimming a few inches off the edge, to make a square 18×18, then we’ll cut that in half to create 2 rectangles 18×9 inches. So, you’ll get two squares, sized at 9×9, for your quilt from each fat quarter bundle. YES, it gave me a headache trying to figure this all out, so if it doesn’t make sense, just come back on June 6 for the cutting tutorial 🙂

You might have to do a little math before purchasing all your fabric. Just make sure you’re getting enough for the size you want to make!

Fabrics:
–1 fat quarter bundle for the ruffled squares
(you might need more than 1 fat quarter bundle, depending on how many blocks of fabric yours comes with. my riley blake bundle came with 22 blocks, which will give me 44 squares, 9×9 inches each)
 –1 yard for border 1
 –2 yards for border 2
–1/2 yard for binding
–4 yards for backing
–4 yards muslin (for stabilizing squares
–batting

Tools:
sewing machine
thread
scissors
 safety pins
seam ripper (or not, if you’re lucky)!
cutting mat
rotary cutter
clear ruler
iron/board
ruffle foot*
walking foot*
quilting gloves*
quilting stand*
*optional

Pictures:
 quilting gloves- I ordered mine from Joann.com for about $8

 ruffle foot- i use a bernina, and i am lucky that the universal one fits in my machine. the actual bernina ruffle foot costs over $100, but i bought this for $20, plus an attachment to make it fit on my machine, for an additional $12. i bought this at the local bernina shop, but i know you can buy them online. i will show you how to use it during week 2 of our quilt-along!

 batting- i bought mine at Joanns with a 40% coupon, so it came to about $16

random supplies

Sponsored by:

I’m extremely excited to have Riley Blake sponsoring this event! If you’re a fabric nut like I am, then you’re probably familiar with all the gorgeousness that comes from the designers at Riley Blake! If you’re not familiar with them yet, I totally recommend checking them out! They just returned from a Quilting Expo in Kansas City, where you can see some of their lovely fabrics being put to good use in quilts, clothing, and bags. Check it out on their blog.

ps- They will be providing a giveaway on June 20 (open to all), so be sure to like them on facebook to be eligible to win, and come back to enter!

So, I hope there is someone who’d like to take on the challenge with me! Feel free to grab my button and spread the word. It’s going to be a lot of fun! Oh, and please leave a comment if you’re going to participate, I would love to “hang out and talk” during the process!