"Tula's True Colors" Completed Charm Squares with Circles Quilt

I posted this quilt top made with two 5 inch charm packs of “Tula’s True Colors” by Free Spirit Fabrics back on August 20th. Here, finally, is the finished quilt. It sat on the shelf for quite a while as I thought about how to do the quilting.

One option was to quilt concentric circles around each of the circles on the quilt. Eventually the circles would intersect, like ripples in a pond. (Click this lint to see this in the quilting on my “Portholes” quilt). This quilt is small enough that it would be doable, but my appliqued circles patches just aren’t picture perfect, so I couldn’t justify all the hours of quilting that would take.

I ended up quilting down the rows, just next to the seam in a row, and then sewing around the circle if there was in the row I was stitching. It was like driving in a road with a rotary….sew straight until you reach the circle, sew half way around that circle and then sew on out when you’ve reached the seam straight across from the seam you’d be sewing on.

It’s a bit hard to see, but there is one row of quilting around the left side of this circle and two rows around the right side.

Where the circles didn’t intersect a seam I simple sewed around the circle, about 1/8 inch from the appliqued circle edge.

This quilt is just so cheerful. And I love Tula Pink’s “Fairy Dust” design in the “Whisper” colorway from this line on the back of the quilt…you can see it peaking out in the photo above, with the sparrows flying among the tiny stars. It’s probably my favorite design in this line.

"Tula's True Colors" 3 yard Fabric Café® "Attraction" Quilt is Complete

The aqua fabric in “Tula’s True Colors” by Free Spirit has a design that looks like a mineral that has been in cross section. In fact this fabric design is called “Mineral”. So I took my quilt over the local conservation land to take a photo of it on some big rocks left behind at some point by a glacier.

This pattern is “Attraction”, one of Fabric Café’s® three yard patterns. All of the fabrics on the front of the quilt, except the binding, are from Tula Pink’s “Tula’s True Colors” printed by Free Spirit.

Here is the back. I found it in my stash after I decided that the fabric which I had ordered just wasn’t right for this quilt. Go figure! The backing fabric is called “Nature Walk”, designed by Tamara Kate for Michael Miller Fabrics. It has rabbits, squirrels, butterflies and mushrooms in a diamond grid. It makes a perfect back for this quilt. (This is an old fabric line, mostly out of stock, but you might find a bit our there if you search).

The quilting was all done on my domestic machine with a walking foot. It is such a linear quilt pattern that I just followed its lead and did straight line quilting, just beside the ditch.

I’ve entered this quilt in Bits ‘n Pieces Quilt Shop’s Customer 3 Yard Quilt Challenge. All the quilt will go up on their FaceBook page after September 12th. You’ll be able to see all the entries and vote on your favorites. Go check it out this weekend—it’ll be fun!

Using "Tula's True Colors" in Fabric Café's® Pattern "Attraction"

Last week I showed you a quilt using all the fabric’s in Tula Pink’s new line “Tula’s True Colors” by Free Spirit. For this quilt pattern, “Attraction” from Fabric Café, I chose 1 yard of 3 different fabrics in Tula’s line. (All of Fabric Cafe’s quilt patterns use just 3 one yard cuts).

I picked a blue, an aqua and a yellow green. These are analogous colors on the color wheel—they are positioned right next to each other. It’s a guarantee that the colors will all play well together!

This is a great pattern and it sews up super fast. I found I had a free hour one morning and that was all I needed to cut out the fabric. Then it just took an afternoon to put it together.

I like how the small squares seem to dance across the design.

i think it would look just as great using the hot colors in “Tula’s True Colors”. And I’d love to see this quilt with 2 analogous colors on the color wheel, and one complimentary color from the opposite side of the color wheel. I think that would make a spectacular quilt!