Hello!  It’s Amanda of Pieced Just Sew and I am excited to be back today with a new tutorial!  I got to work with the gorgeous new collection from Lella Boutique called Garden Variety and working with these fabrics reminded me of growing up in rural Pennsylvania and exploring outside during the summers.  While the fabric may have a summery feel, this large throw quilt will be perfect for snuggling up as the cooler fall weather moves in!

This quilt finishes at 60" x 72".

1 fat eighth bundle with at least 30 pieces (Garden Variety by Lella Boutique)

3-1/2 yards background fabric (Bella Solid 9900-98)

3/4 yard binding fabric (SKU 5075-14)

4 yards backing fabric (SKU 5070-11)

 

Choose 30 fat eighths from your bundle.  This pattern looks best if there is contrast between the prints and the background, so I left out the white bee print.

Cutting:

From each fat eighth:

• Cut a 5-1/2” strip; subcut the strip into one 5-1/2” square and two 5” squares.

Tip: If you cut carefully, you should be able to get an additional 5-1/2” square from your strip.  If your strip is a little too short, cut a 5” square instead.  You can also cut a 2-1/2” strip from the remainder of each fat eighth.  Save these for a bonus quilt that will be on my blog!

From the background fabric:

• 4 strips, 4-1/2” wide; subcut into 4-1/2” squares (8 per strip) until you have 30 squares.
• 15 strips, 5” wide; subcut into 5” squares (8 per strip) until you have 120 squares.
• 5 strips, 5-1/2” wide; subcut into 5-1/2” squares (6 per strip) until you have 30 squares.

From the binding fabric, cut 7 strips, 2-1/2” wide.

 

Making the half square triangles:

Draw a diagonal line from corner to corner on the 5” background squares (note: you will only use half of the 5” background squares for this step, but go ahead and draw the line on all of them).  Pair each square with a 5” print square, right sides together.  Sew 1/4” away from the line on both sides.  Cut apart on the center lines and press towards the print fabric to create half square triangles (HST).  You will have four HSTs of each print.  Trim each to 4-1/2”.

Tip: If you have directional prints and you want them to face the same direction in the block, arrange both matching print squares side by side, facing the same way.  Top each with a background square, making sure that the drawn line goes from top left to bottom right on one and from top right to bottom left on the other.

 

Making the quarter square triangles:

The portion of the block with the small triangles may not look like traditional quarter square triangles, but they are constructed in a very similar way.  First, you will make HSTs just like you did above.  Draw a diagonal line from corner to corner on the 5-1/2” background squares.  Pair each square with a 5-1/2” print square, right sides together.  Sew 1/4” away from the line on both sides.  Cut apart on the center lines and press towards the print fabric.  You will have two HSTs of each print.

Next, pair each HST that you just created with the remaining 5” background squares (if you have not already drawn diagonal lines on the background squares, do so now).  You can trim your HSTs down to 5” if you prefer, but it is not necessary.  Center the smaller background square over the larger HST, keeping the points on two sides of the background square lined up with the seam of the HST, as shown below.  The only difference from traditional quarter square triangles is that your top piece is a solid square rather than another HST.

Make sure your drawn line on the solid square crosses the seam line of the HST (rather than being parallel).  Sew 1/4” away from the line on both sides.  Cut apart on the center lines and press towards the print fabric to create quarter square triangles (QST).  You will have four QSTs of each print.

You may notice that the blocks are not exactly the same.  When you cut your squares apart on the center line, you have one with a diagonal seam going in one direction and one with the seam going the opposite direction.  Because three-fourths of the block is background, the blocks will look identical in the final block regardless of which way the final diagonal seam is going.

Trim each QST to 4-1/2”.  You will want to be careful when trimming to avoid cutting off the points of the print fabric.  To do this, you will want to line up one print corner with the corner of your ruler and the other print corner with the 4-1/2" mark on your ruler, as shown below.  Make sure your QST extends beyond the 4-1/2" line all the way around before you cut!  I found that I was barely cutting off a sliver in some spots.  It's better to cut off a little bit of a point than to have a block segment that ends up too small.

Assembling the block:

Gather all the pieces with the same print (4 HSTs and 4 QSTs) and a 4-1/2” background square.  Arrange the segments as shown below.  Don’t worry about the direction of that last diagonal seam in the QSTs.  It does not matter which direction that seam is going in the block, as long as the print quarter of the segment is facing towards the center of the block.

Sew the segments in three rows of three, pressing in the direction shown in the diagram.  Sew the three rows together, pressing towards the middle row. Repeat to make 30 blocks.

Assembling the quilt top:

Lay out your blocks into six rows of five blocks each.  If you rotate every other block a quarter-turn, the seams between the blocks should nest.  Once you’ve decided on an arrangement, sew the blocks together into rows, and then join the rows together.  Even though they nested, the seams were a little bulky once blocks were sewn to each other, so I pressed all of my seams between blocks open.

Your finished quilt should measure approximately 60” x 72”.  I quilted mine with a pantograph called Sound and Vision.

Thank you for joining me today!  You can follow my quilting adventures on Instagram or on my blog.  If you make this quilt, please share and tag me!  I would love to see yours!

If you want to see what I made with my fat eighth leftovers, check out the Country Summer bonus quilt on the tutorials page of my blog!

Amanda Wilbert

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