A Fun way to play with the Quilt Builder Card Deck this Valentine's Day!
Posted by Betsy Friedrich on Jan 23rd 2024
If you haven’t discovered our best-selling Quilt Builder Card Decks yet, check out the fun our Marketing Coordinator, Betsy Friedrich, had designing her Hugs and Kisses wall-hanging quilt.
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Part of the fun of these cards is finding unique ways to combine the quilt blocks together to make something fresh and new out of traditional quilt block patterns. For this quilt, I chose four designs from Quilt Builder Card Deck #1 for a play on X and O standing for hugs and kisses. For the first “O,” I pulled the Heart block to lean into the Valentine's Day theme. When browsing through the rest of the cards, “Art Square” immediately stuck out as an easy option for an O without having to actually make curved edges. There are quite a few options to make an ‘X” from in this quilt builder card deck, but quick and easy being the top priority, Sarah’s Favorite and Toad in a Puddle seemed like reasonable choices. Plus, Sarah is the name of my daughter, so that was an obvious yes! I then laid out each card in two columns X, O format to get an idea of whether or not these blocks would work. Each quilt block is given an estimated value represented in grayscale to help you figure out how to choose your coordinating fabrics without locking you into a specific hue. Scrappy is the name of my quilting game, so before I chose what size to make my blocks, I raided my stash to see how many coordinating pinks, reds, and oranges I might have to work with.
On the back of each card is a chart with the finished block sizes (not including the seam allowances) across the top of the card. The deck comes with a handy guide for reading the quilt block chart that’s easily identifiable by the red border around the card. Underneath the finished block size is the size piece you need to cut for each unit of the quilt block. This made it really easy to decipher whether or not I had enough of a particular fabric scrap to use in my quilt. Since I knew I wanted to use my rose fabric for my heart, but I only had a 5” x WOF (width of fabric) strip, I was quickly able to determine the largest size I could make with that fabric was 6” since unit B needed one 4 1/4” square.
Moving on to the other blocks, if Scrappy is the name of my game, fussy cutting is my power play. I couldn’t resist centering a flower in the middle of my X for “Toad in a Puddle." I then chain-pieced my four patches for Sarah’s Favorite, and it was time to put all my blocks together.
Those of you who were paying attention closely will notice that my finished Art Square doesn’t look like it was supposed to, according to the card. While having the color values represented in grayscale really helps you decipher the overall quilt block design, it wasn’t until I went to put all four of my blocks together that I noticed my “O” from Art Square didn’t look right. Since all my “letters” were made out of pink fabric, having one O made from the background fabric didn’t really give the impression of an “O” so much as a random block thrown in.
More fussy cutting to the rescue! I made a test block centering a peony from my Kaffe Fassett fabric to fill in the O, and the problem was solved! Just because a pattern suggests you make something one way, doesn’t mean that’s the only way. With a little shift in color value, this quilt was ready for the finishing touches!
Not wanting the quilting to distract from my overall message, I chose to big stitch quilt this wall-hanging in one-inch lines with white perle cotton. The Quilt Builder Card Deck doesn’t stop there! You’ll love the other colored reference cards, like the yellow-bordered card for figuring out binding width and yardage.
Living up to my scrappy reputation, I was able to figure out enough binding from a pink gridded fabric in my scrap bucket to finish off this floral geometric Valentine’s Day treat!
What will you design with the Quilt Builder Card Deck? We’d love to see tag us on Instagram (@ctpublishing) and use the hashtag #quiltbuildercarddeck.
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