Handmade Everyday: My Four Winds Quilt

We talk a lot about handmade wardrobes over here since we're in the wardrobe business, but we also love having handmade items in our home as well, so I thought I'd share my recently finished Four Winds Quilt on the blog today.

After we moved and went from a full to queen sized bed our old IKEA down comforter just wasn't really cutting it anymore. It was definitely time for an upgrade. I don't have a lot of time for off the clock sewing since I'm on the clock most of the time, even at home, so I needed a quilt pattern that wouldn't take forever to assemble. Enter the oversized block genius of the Four Winds quilt from Fancy Tiger Crafts!

If you've never made a quilt before or are short on time, I highly recommend this pattern. The triangles in this pattern are known as Flying Geese which are traditionally much smaller and because of that, more labor intensive. Since the pattern is blown up here it not only offers a quicker path to a finished quilt, but it also packs a huge visual punch. Bonus points to the fact that the Four Winds Quilt is made to work with fat quarter packs which is a low-stash person's (aka my) dream.

For the blue triangles I used an older version of this Robert Kaufman fat quarter pack from Purl Soho. I supplemented it with a bit of RK chambray and Essex Linen I had leftover from a few Grainline samples just to add a few more colors and to bring the backing I ended up using onto the front. The white is Kona Cotton in snow and it's the perfect almost white. Reads white to the eyes but very importantly it's not so white that you're afraid to use it.

There was no way I could cram a quilt this size under my standard arm sewing machine so after assembling the quilt top I took it and the backing to a longarm quilter who assembled the quilt sandwich and quilted the whole thing for me. It's hard to see in the photo but they used a variegated grey quilting thread that picked up all the colors of the denim. The backing and binding are Robert Kaufman Essex which is a cotton/linen blend and adds a really nice weight to the whole thing.

Now that the quilt is finished and being used I can't wait to start on another project for our home. I just need to decide if it's a throw quilt (our basement is pretty arctic) or some pillows for the couch. I'd really like to make some log cabin style pillow covers out of the scraps of more Grainline projects. I think it would be a fun way to bring some of the garment sample fabrics I fell in love with home to enjoy myself, as well as use up some of the larger scraps I've been saving.

I've made a few quilts prior to this, some of which you can see in these posts: Owl Baby Quilt and Laying Out the Catnap Quilt. I guess I never blogged the finished Cat Quilt, but you can see it here if you're interested.