Once again I’ve been quilting under the influence of Kate/The Last Homely House whom you can find on YouTube and Pinterest. Since discovering her last August, I’ve rediscovered my love for Kaffe Fassett (KF) quilts and fabrics and since then I have finished six KF quilts. I am counting this quilt as two finishes which you will see later in this Post. Terry Rowland, (TR) whom you can also find on YouTube, Pinterest and Facebook, designed this pattern as a Colorwash Scrap Challenge in 2022 and only aware of it after watching some of Kate’s YouTube videos. I wasn’t interested at first, especially since they were three-inch squares and I don’t do colorwash since it conjures up bad memories of when I worked at a quilt shop and Watercolor quilts were the rage. Boy, did I hate assisting customers with finding fabrics which blended together. Also, it involved rotary cutting your patches while sitting down, something I am not comfortable doing and I have ten good reasons not to which are my fingers. Well, something finally kicked in at the beginning of the year as to how I could make this quilt which I am happy to explain how my TR quilt was a fun make.
At the beginning of 2025, I was working on my Kaffe Fassett Tumbling Block Quilt and had added quite a bit to my already large stash of KF scraps from making over 25 quilts since I started quilting in 1997. Also, good Quilt Peep Mary gave me some nice chunks from a Kaffe Fassett Collective Layer Cake which she used to make her Baby Bulls Eye Quilt. This was the reason I decided to make my TR Quilt more controlled by using the same size width of 1.5” versus improv with the Que sera sera of varying widths. In order to ensure the KFC scraps would be enough to make the 3.5” blocks, I decided all of my patches/strips needed to be 1.5” which I was happy to use my Sizzix die cutter for some marathon strip cutting.And would you believe, once the 1-1/2” strips were cut, I did cut them to size while sitting down since I have a wonderful side table next to my sewing machine and used my slotted ruler to avoid the rotary cutter from slipping. After that, each block fabric pairing was pinned together and I don’t think I ever used so many straight pins in a project before. I did this sequence twice because I went from making a 72” square quilt to a 90” square quilt. One lesson learned while cutting the strips was that large scale prints cut in small patches are interesting and I don’t always need to make large blocks to showcase the prints.
I sewed the Nine-Patch blocks in color wheel order, ROY G BIV (Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet and then the very arduous task of arranging them in a colorwash layout.
I did a Google and Pinterest search of color burst images and used this one since it almost had the same colors as the TR blocks once I cropped the image. It was here that it would have also been better if four patch blocks were made instead. You wouldn’t think with a thousand blocks made that there would be so many times I had to rearrange the layout because the same fabric were right next to each other. BTW, salty, sailor talk is no longer since I am now saying ‘Oy which I hear used in some of the British, Scotland and Irish TV series plus the Svalbard videos I watch. It also rhymes with my maiden name and saying ‘Oy is way nicer and I did I say it a lot while working on the quilt layout.
Since the TR Quilt is 90” square, I was planning on using a wide back rainbow ombré print. But then I remembered I had sitting in my flimsy stash, an 84” square of a Turning Twenty pattern made with KF fabrics, which just so happen, the same prints were used in the TR blocks. I just needed to add 7” strips of a KF stripe to make it large enough for the backing.
This is the second time I used a Turning Twenty flimsy with KF fabrics as a backing for a KF quilt. The first time was for the Stripe Quilt made in 2018.
I machine quilted with straight grid lines around each 3” square using #3817 Aurifil Variegated Thread on top and #2105 Yellow on the bottom. While machine quilting, I was thinking and worried about the binding since I really wanted to use a stripe but thought I wouldn’t have the right color. Then I remembered that I purchased fat quarters of the new narrow woven stripes and were the right colorway to match the colorwash effect on each side of the TR quilt. Just think, if I hadn’t had oral surgery last month and recuperated by purchasing these new fabrics at the quilt shop nearby, this perfect finishing touch to my TR quilt would not have been made possible. Since I thought I will be experiencing withdrawal from making this quilt with the wonderful KF fabrics, I decided to sew the binding by hand which is a lovely way to finish a much loved quilt.
Don’t you agree that I should count my TR quilt as two quilt finishes? Right now, this quilt is draped over the second floor bannister and it’s lovely to see when going up and down the stairs or coming in through the front door. The view and different colors can be seen by switching it around or flipping it over. There’s a sad reason as to why this quilt was finished sooner than expected since I only sewed the blocks while at the GP House. Because of the Master Quilt Holder’s back problem and subsequent Kyphoplasty surgery (special cement injected into the vertebrae) we have not been to the GP House nor seen the darling Granddaughter in over a month. I am thankful that this project always traveled back and forth between the two houses and was able to sew to take my mind off of missing her so much. Hubby is on the mend and there is no way he could help me with holding up the TR Quilt outside. Besides, our Spring weather has been terrible so inside photos had to do. I am saying prayers, keeping my fingers crossed and growling at Hubby when I see him doing something that he shouldn’t so we may be able to travel next week after the doctor’s visit.
Wishing you a Blessed Easter and a wonderful weekend.
Linking up with;My Quikt Infatuation/NTT
