KFC Dazzling Diamond Quilt

It seems I sew through a Kaffe Fassett (KF) phase (not a rut) which I then have to force myself to make quilts with the other fabric lines in my stash. I call this a hiatus and much to my surprise the last quilt I made using KF prints was almost seven years ago, although there were some smaller quilts made using only shot cottons and stripes. My love for KF  fabrics was reignited by Kate/The Last Homely House whom I discovered last October and have now finished six KF quilts since then and have two more in the waiting wing. Since January I had two epic KFC (Kaffe Fassett Collective) finishes, Tumbling Block Quilt and Terry Rowland Scrap Challenge Quilt (just finished less than a month ago) and I now have a third one with the KFC Dazzling Diamond Quilt. One of the things I’ve learned since starting this new KFC phase is, if you live in the States like me, KFC has nothing to do with Fried Chicken but is the acronym for Kaffe Fassett Collective which includes Brandon Marley and Philip Jacob’s fabrics. My stash of fabrics includes KF fabrics purchased well over twenty years ago and now I have been having a buying spree of purchasing KFC fabrics to stash/catch up.

I wasn’t planning on making another diamond quilt with the leftover diamonds and strips from previous projects and thought a One Thousand Pyramid quilt would be different and fun to make. But, I didn’t want to sew long rows of triangles and thought the layout would be more interesting with 4”x8” blocks (approx.) instead; I just needed to make 422 which were easy to sew since I used my Sizzix Isosceles Triangle die. Of course, I needed to cut more fabric from my stash and it’s nice I have new scraps for the KFC scrap stash now.

I have to mention that being the angle-challenged quilter and having never taken a Geometry class, I learned the Isosceles Triangle is different than the Equilateral Triangle (which I thought my die was) because the two sides are equal but the base is not. I’ve lost count of how many times I sewed the wrong sides together which resulted in the blocks looking like this. Even once I was aware of this, I still made mistakes.

While sewing these blocks and not looking forward to laying out 242 4”x8” blocks, I came up with the idea of sewing two blocks together which then diamonds would be created and it would also give the quilt some resting spots. It was much easier to layout 121 bocks and I wasn’t so concerned with the same fabrics being close together. There are three different types of diamonds, one made with the same fabrics, two different fabrics and ones created by four HRT blocks which really gave Dazzling Diamond its name.

I machine quilted straight and meandering lines using #3817 Auril #50 variegated thread for the top and #2610 Blue Gray for the bottom.

I was really tempted to purchase yardage of a KFC print for the backing but decided to use yardage of two Philip Jacob’s prints, Shaggy Poppy and Morning Glory along with KF Vintage Bead Stripe Bead I had for way too long in my stash. Common sense prevailed since I realized I could purchased more KFC fat quarters and yardage with the $75+ saved. I just recently learned that a quilt shop only 15 mins away from the GP House has a fabulous KFC inventory so I am so looking forward to making a visit. Am I the only one when going fabric shopping and the hubby sits by the register, secretly asks the  staff to announce the cost as only being $10? I may have fooled him a few times.

Once again, I used a variety of different shades of the caterpillar stripe for the binding and were alternated between, blue, red and orange/green. I just love the way it looks against the many KFC prints and I will be on the hunt for more.

The KFC Dazzling Diamond Quilt measures 84” square and is now hanging over the bannister along with the Terry Rowland quilt.

Good news on the Master Quilt Holder who has been missing in action for awhile. On this beautiful day, He was feeling better to help me hang up the Dazzling Diamond Quilt outside over the screened room. I am jokingly saying a Two Pole System was deployed; one being a garment hanging pole you may have seen at stores and one with two legs who is not above sticking out his middle finger, but only to be funny and, to me, way cuter. The MQH is still in recovery mode and visits to the GP House are still up in the air. I am keeping my fingers crossed that we can visit my darling Granddaughter this weekend.

With the finish of these three KFC quilts since January, I am saying Happy Epic Ending because I do NOT want to make another big quilt nor handquilt nor hand piece. My plans for this year was to make smaller quilts and maybe there still time I can do this for the remainder of 2025. Is it me, but the year is going by fast, right?

My big apologies for being very late in responding to comments with all that is happening  and the latest being I really need a new IPad. Demando has been given the assignment of deciding which one to buy or if I am going to inherit his IPad Air. Either way, I’ll have an attached keyboard which will be way more convenient than using the keyboard I have now and may help me sending responses out quicker.

Linking up with:My Quilt Infatuation/NTT

Another Epic Kaffe Fassett Quilt—Terry Rowland Scrap Quilt

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 made over a thousand 3.5” blocks and once these were finished and separated by colorway, I grouped nine of the same colorway together to make Nine-Patch blocks measuring 9.5”. Since I had a lot of  3.5” blocks made with the same fabrics, the Nine-Patches were made with either two different blocks set in a 5/4 layout, three and four different blocks and my favorite of nine different block. I did this because I thought it would be easier to layout 100 9-1/2” blocks versus 1,000 3-1/2” blocks. This turned out to be a mistake because the seams would not nest when sewing rows of blocks together so all of the seams needed to be pressed open. I should have sewn the blocks as four patches and will do this the next time if I ever make another TR quilt which I might since the 3.5” blocks were so addicting to make.

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