I’m a fan of precuts, especially jelly rolls and charm packs. Using precuts allows me to sample an entire line without buying tons of fabric, and I love a good matchy-matchy quilt as much as I do a super-scrappy quilt. Plus, sewing with jelly rolls or charms cuts down on my cutting time. (I secretly like cutting, but it’s nice to have a shortcut sometimes!)
A recent opportunity to work with a new precut—the jolly bar, sold exclusively by the Fat Quarter Shop—opened up a whole new world for me. Jolly bars contain precut 5” x 10” rectangles. The Fat Quarter Shop provided me a jolly bar of Bonnie and Camille’s new Hello Darling collection and set me loose to do what I wanted with it. Yippee!
I’ve sewed squares and curves and triangles, but I’ve never worked with rectangles. I immediately knew I wanted to design a quilt that would take advantage of that new-to-me shape. This is what I concocted ...
I’m calling this design Bring on the Dancing Horses,* and it features big, big diamonds composed of half-rectangle triangles (HRTs). I made it without the use of a fancy ruler, but I’m so smitten with these triangles that after having made this quilt, I did invest in Bloc_Loc’s HRT set.
 |
| The back features fabrics from older Bonnie and Camille lines. |
Although I can imagine these diamonds quilted with, say, a lovely figure-eight design, I opted for straight-line quilting a quarter of an inch on either side of the block seams. Then I went back and quilted around the inside and outside of the triangles.
 |
| A close-up of the quilting. |
 |
| I adore the binding. It’s also from Hello Darling. |
If you want to sew your own version of this quilt, I documented my process in Tutorial: Bring on the Dancing Horses.
And because I’m an overachiever when it comes to these diamonds, I made a second quilt top, using a jolly bar of Bonnie and Camille’s Daysail. Do you have any suggestions on the quilting? My knee-jerk reaction is to repeat my initial approach, but I’m open to other options.
I will most likely gift the Hello Darling quilt, but I am tempted to keep the Daysail version. Can you blame me? ; )
* “Bring on the Dancing Horses” is a song by Echo and the Bunnymen. No, there are no horses in my quilt design!
Linking up to Sew Cute Tuesday, Let’s Bee Social, WIP Wednesday, Needle and Thread Thursday, TGIFF, and Finish It Up Friday ...
Beautiful quilt. A change up from 1/2 square triangles. Thanks for the tutorial. Congratulations on your anniversary.
ReplyDeleteLove it!!! I say pebbles in the white :) Great idea for using the Jolly Bar precut.
ReplyDeleteWhat a great pattern. Thanks for the tutorial.
ReplyDeleteOh my, this is just amazing. I love this design, so simple but so effective. thank you for sharing. x
ReplyDeleteOh this is beautiful - what a great design!
ReplyDeleteHoly Moley! I love this!
ReplyDeletevery cute! I also love that I'm hearing you say "matchy-matchy" and "super scrapy" in my head as I read this! Lol
ReplyDeleteGreat quilt! Love the name...you must be born around 77 like me;). I've named quite a few quilts after songs stuck in my head while working on them. The design is nice and modern but still traditional enough for any jolly bar. Great design!!!
ReplyDeleteYour quilts look great. My favourite is the one made with Hello Darling.
ReplyDeleteCute quilt I love the diamond pattern:-)
ReplyDeleteI've never have used very many pre-cuts, because I'm afraid I'll buy a jelly roll, and realize that I needed a layer cake to make the quilt I had my heart set on. I have to say that it does make a lot of sense though. For quilting your second top, perhaps you could focus on quilting each diamond, and quilting some kind of shape in the negative white space. I really love the colors with the Daysail fabrics... so cool and soothing.
ReplyDeleteYour thumbnail caught my eye off Lorna's linky! LOVE this quilt, and I, too, especially since the Fabri-Quilt New Block blog hop, where I 'fooled around' with a couple designs (they didn't make the cut though). I have Marti Michell's or maybe it's That Patchwork Place's HRT ruler, but I've done them without. As for quilting suggestion, oh, I'd do dot-to-dot to give a secondary 'ghost' triangle layer! Now heading to your giveaway...
ReplyDeleteBeautiful quilt design! I love the diamonds and HRT's! And I better get those Bloc-Loc rulers too! A 5x10 piece is a great size to have on hand and having them available as a pre-cut it awesome!
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing your pattern. I really like this design. I like the Day Sail fabrics too. I would probably keep that one. Debbie
ReplyDeleteThanks for the tutorial. I have a jelly roll of Reel Time in my stash that I think will work.
ReplyDeleteLove these diamonds! And the Bonnie and Camille fabric is perfect! :)
ReplyDeleteGreat design - love it! Thanks for the tutorial :)
ReplyDeleteDebby E
samtaylorcjsmimi at yahoo dot com
I'm spoiled so I've seen these lovelies in person but I'm so happy to see them again. I feel like it says a lot about a design when you are driven to make it over and over again. Timelessly modern or something like that. I'm with some of the other commenters, maybe echoing the diamond shapes in the negative space, there will be a couple spots where they might collide but that could be really interesting!
ReplyDeleteI love this diamond quilt and the fabric is perfect.
ReplyDeleteThese are both great quilts. I've been wanting to try the jolly bars, maybe this is the push I need! Thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteAnother lovely Jolly Bar pattern! Thanks so much for sharing your talent and making this great pattern free to us.
ReplyDeleteHi! This is really beautiful! x Teje
ReplyDeleteBeautifully done. Love the big diamonds.
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteI really really love how these triangles turned out! So cute!
Wonderful quilt and pattern.
ReplyDeleteWhat a fun quilt name! Gosh, a free-motion meander of any kind all over the white would be gorgeous, with just one or maybe two straight lines inside the diamond color bands so that they puff out nicely from the background. Or you can go super linear and just do parallel straight lines across the whole width at half- or third-inch intervals for the whole quilt, and it'd still be stunning. This pattern really lends itself to a variety of quilting strategies, doesn't it?
ReplyDeleteYou outdid yourself with this one! Such a gorgeous design and a great use of those jolly bar strips. Love the quilting... And the backing!
ReplyDeleteBeautiful quilt! Thank you for the tutorial. I may have to make one in the next few months!
ReplyDeleteVery nice. So great to include the document/tutorial. Pre cuts are Fabulous to get lots of a collection!
ReplyDeleteLovely fun modern quilt!!
ReplyDeleteGreat quilt. I have yet to try this new precut but now I'm interested. I adore charm packs.
ReplyDeleteReally great design, Michelle!!! And, nope, don't blame you at all for wanting to keep the daysail. :D Who could?
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely gorgeous. I love the pattern and clean lines.
ReplyDeleteI just love the HRT idea. I made my own version and hand quilted it using a contrast red pearl cotton with long stitches. I wish I could post a photo! Thanks, Daphne
ReplyDelete