cultivate blog tour + a new wall quilt

Good morning! Welcome to my stop on the Cultivate Blog Tour, a blog hop celebrating Bonnie Christine's latest fabric collection, Cultivate. I've sewn with Bonnie's fabric and ribbon before (using them in both a lined tote bag and a round zipper pouch), and I must say that the colors and patterns in this latest collection are among my favorites.

In case it's your first time here, welcome! My name is Caitlin, and I'm a full-time quilter working out of my studio in southern New Hampshire. In addition to selling quilts and patchwork goods in my online shop, I also stock hard-to-find and exclusive screen-printed fabrics from indie designers. You can find me on Instagram and keep up with shop news by signing up for my newsletter.

Now on to the project: I knew that I wanted to make a wall quilt with the four fat quarters from Cultivate that I selected, but it wasn't until Sunday when inspiration for a quilt design struck. While selling quilts at an outdoor craft show in Boston, I spotted this geometric tea towel by Cat Wagon Prints in the booth across the way. I was immediately drawn to the design, so I purchased a towel and started sketching out ideas on how to translate the shapes into a quilted piece.

When it came time to start constructing the top, I decided to use needle-turn appliqué in lieu of traditional piecing, since it would allow me to more easily layer the shapes on top of one another. I cut out circles from the navy blue floral---the print that initially drew me to the collection---and thread basted and then sewed the circles to a piece of unbleached muslin.

Once those were stitched down, I started on the pink and chartreuse/yellow triangles. I initially started with half-square triangles, like those in the original tea towel, but almost immediately gave up on that shape when it came time to turn under the acute angle corners---my needle-turn appliqué skills are not there quite yet! So instead, I cut out equilateral triangles and arranged them across the top, stitching them down and practicing and perfecting my angles as I went.

Once everything was hand-stitched, I machine quilted over all of the shapes with my favorite grid design in natural-colored thread, and then machine bound the quilt with a pink and white stripe from the collection.

This turned out to be such a fun experiment in quilt design, and though the hand appliqué process was definitely time intensive, I think the results were well worth it.

Would you like to see some more projects using Cultivate fabrics? Be sure to check out the onesies Bonnie made out of knit for the little girl she's expecting this month (!), the knit tops her mom made, and the project Sandy from Crafty Planner will be posting tomorrow. And in the meantime, you can now find this quilt listed for sale in the shop.

Quilt Stats
Finished dimensions: 20.5" x 21.5"
Fabrics used: Unbleached muslin; Plotted Farm in Autumn and Moss, Floriculture in Midnight, and Row by Row in Lit, all from the Cultivate collection by Bonnie Christine.
Quilt design: Original by Salty Oat

wonky triangles baby quilt

A little over four years ago, I made a chevron quilt for my friends' new baby daughter. It's a quilt that I'm happy to say has been well loved and is still in rotation, so when my friends recently commissioned me to make a baby quilt for their second daughter, who was born in April, I was super excited.

I knew I wanted to do something fun, and slightly different, for the quilt design. I remembered that I had a copy of the Wonky Triangles paper-piecing pattern by Owen's Olivia, and thought this could be the perfect opportunity to finally use it.

My friends sent me a few pieces of fabric to include in the quilt: an aqua-and-brown polka dot and a gray, lime green, brown and aqua print. I used those fabrics as my starting point, and pulled coordinating lime and aqua scraps from my stash.

I paper pieced each of the triangles, using various shades of white and cream, and a low-volume print, for the background. I included one solid magenta triangle for fun, which added an unexpected pop of color.

I backed the quilt with a teal and cream polka dot, quilted it with a simple cross-hatch, and made a scrappy binding from the leftover pieces of fabric. I also added a custom cross-stitch label to the back, with the baby's name and birth date.

It was so fun to make a quilt for a baby that I hope to meet soon, and I love knowing that the quilt has gone to home where it will be used and well loved.

triangle baby quilt

Little Bits Quilting Bee is by far one of my favorite quilting books. Its pages are filled with quilts that feature a fresh, modern perspective; its author, Kathreen Ricketson, had such an amazing style. I recently finished this triangle baby quilt---my second quilt using one of the book's patterns (my Prismatic quilt was the first)---and love how it turned out.

The front features triangles cut from a reproduction print charm pack that I picked up in New Hampshire at Keepsake Quilting's annual summer tent sale, arranged in color order.

I backed it with an apple print by Alexander Henry and quilted it with straight lines that follow the angles of the triangles' sides. Inspired by my Craftsy class potholder, I rounded the corners and bound the quilt with a red-and-white bias tape. The rounded corners are probably my favorite part.

You can find the quilt for sale in my Etsy shop.

wedding project: quilt

Photo by Teresa Munisteri

Before our wedding last August, I collected fabric from some of our wedding guests. In the months leading up to the big day, I cut the fabric into isosceles triangles using pinking shears, and sewed the triangles together to create simple bunting to decorate our venue, the Richards Free Library in Newport, NH.

Photo by Teresa Munisteri

On the day of our wedding, we strung the bunting up in the library's ballroom, where we held our ceremony, and around the tables of pie and lasagna at our reception in the Library Arts Center.

Photo by Teresa Munisteri

After the wedding, I started work on a wedding quilt, made up of all of the triangles from the bunting. The quilt came together rather quickly (if you don't count the time I spent ripping out a few seams...), and is an eclectic mix of colors, thanks to the variety of fabric we received.

Being the first quilt I've ever done on my own, it has some wobbly and uneven seams, and is a slightly odd, longish shape, but I'm happy with how it turned out. It now resides in our living room and is a nice daily reminder of a memorable day.