On a rainy day, I decided to sort my collection of Liberty fat quarters by color. As I did, I found myself gazing at an array of gorgeous grey-scale prints. Suddenly, I remembered some yardage of a cool-grey Liberty solid that I had bought a while back for a sewing project that never came to be. It struck me then that I had enough of this fabric to create a quilt!
I hopped over to my Quilting Pinterest board for pattern inspiration and settled on the Night Vision Quilt by Modernly Morgan. While it’s a relatively straightforward pattern, it involves A LOT of fabric cutting and piecing.
I opted for the throw-sized version, which, in reality, is quite large at 60″x72″ compared to other throw-sized quilt patterns I’ve come across. (I also added a 3″ extra border with the leftover solid fabric, bringing the finished quilt top measurement to 63″x73″). Needless to say, I had my work cut out for me, and, friends, I was HERE for it. Give me gorgeous Liberty Tana Lawn and I’m ALL in!!
Interestingly, the more I quilt, the more I discover certain aspects of the process that I enjoy more than others — of course, these feelings vary from project to project. For this one, it wasn’t until I started piecing the individual blocks together that I truly began to enjoy the fruits of my labor. I loved watching the star blocks take shape and the various fabric colors and prints play together. It’s so satisfying!
While I contemplated adding a larger print border, with the help of my fantastic YouTube community, I ultimately decided to keep it simple. I’m so glad I did because it would have overpowered the central details. Isn’t it amazing how a border can make or break a quilt?
Given that the fabric I used for this quilt is, dare I say, extra special, I decided to up the ante for the batting and backing. For the batting, I opted for a silk/bamboo blend, and for the backing fabric, I chose a cotton/linen blend — and fret not! I pre-washed the linen.
Once my quilt top was done, I packed everything up and sent it off to the Missouri Star Quilt Co. to be long-armed. At the time, I hadn’t yet upgraded to the Juki sewing machine and didn’t want to grapple with free-motion quilting such a special project on my Janome 2212. Sending out quilts is an investment, but in my opinion, it’s so worth it.
When my quilt returned, I was not disappointed — Missouri Star always does such a beautiful job. For this quilt, I went for the “Champagne Bubbles” stitch pattern.
As for the binding, I used a matching “Strawberry Thief” print.
Making this quilt has got me hooked on scrappy projects and, going forward, I’ll definitely feel more confident trusting my intuition when it comes to curating fabrics. Overall, I’m so incredibly happy with the way this quilt turned out. It might just be my favorite! At least Bella seems to think so. 🐱🖤
