Monday, August 25, 2014

Jedi Craft Girl Stair Stepper Quilt...

Jedi Craft Girl submitted this darling Stair Steps quilt using Briar Rose fabrics. How darling is this? This is also a complete tutorial, I have already started picking fabrics in my mind! I love that her 14 year old daughter sewed this entire quilt, in two days no less! Be sure to check out Jedi Craft Girl for some darling quilts and tutorials. I love her stuff!


stair steps quilt pattern briar rose briar_rose_quilt_pattern_1
I am so excited to share my newest quilt pattern with you!  Last year I went to Sewing Summit in Salt Lake City, Utah and I went on a “Bus Tour” of several quilt shops in the area.  It was a blast.  I picked up all these fabrics in the Briar Rose line from Heather Ross.  Who wouldn’t love these adorable frogs, bees,  & grasshoppers!
briar_rose

When my daughter saw them she instantly declared they were hers!  It’s almost been a year and she and I decided that this summer we would put a quilt together.  We worked on the pattern design together and she sewed the entire quilt!  I am so proud of her!
briar_rose_quilt_pattern_5I wanted a pattern that she could handle but that was more than just squares.  This pattern has lots of elements that are great for beginners to learn.  We also wanted a pattern that didn’t cut the fabric up too much – after all, the frogs are just too cute!  So we added a few solid blocks of frogs here and there in the pattern.  Here is how you can make one:
Finished quilt: 50″ x 65″
1/4″ seams throughout 
Supplies:
Assorted fat quarters or quarter yard cuts of 6 or more prints
(20) 5″ squares or charm squares
1 yard green print
1 yard white solid
1/2 yard binding
2.5 yards minky for the back
Begin by constructing (20) framed square blocks:
Pink frame (2) 2.5″ x 4.75″ and (2) 2.5″ x 2.75″
clover frame (2) 2.5″ x 4.75″ and (2) 2.5″ x 2.75″
center square 5″
briar_rose_quilt_pattern_4
Ella laid all her blocks out to make sure the fabric patterns were evenly distributed.  She is the best at laying out quilt pieces!IMG_9930
Sew the top two rectangles together, the side rectangles together and bottom rectangles together like this:
briar_rose_quilt_pattern_6Press seams toward the dark.
Sew the side rectangle units to the center square.  Press.  Sew the top and bottom units to the square and press seams. (I forgot to take a picture of the finished block, but you can see it in the quilt below)
briar_rose_quilt_pattern_3
Construct (24) half square triangle blocks
Cut (12) solid white and (12) green print 10″ squares
briar_rose_quilt_pattern_7Draw a diagonal line from corner to corner on the wrong side of each white square.  Put the green square and the white square together right sides facing.  Sew 1/4″ along both sides of the pencil line.  Cut along the pencil line and press toward the dark.  Each square sew yields (2) half square triangle blocks.
briar_rose_quilt_pattern_8
Now you will need to square up the blocks.  The blocks finish slightly larger which allows for some room in squaring up the blocks.  Line up the diagonal seam with the diagonal line on your cutting mat and cut each square to be 9″.
briar_rose_quilt_pattern_9
Cut (4) 9″ squares from the frog print to mix into the layout.  This is how we laid ours out:
briar_rose_quilt_pattern_11
Sew the blocks together in rows and press the seams in each row in alternating directions, I always press toward the first block in each odd number row and away from the first block in each even row.  Sew the rows together matching intersecting seams and being mindful of the triangle points.
For the quilting…..
We got to go play with some fun long arm quilt machines.  Our friends at Quilt EZ let us try out “The Butler” quilting robot which is a computer that attaches to any long arm quilt machine and it has hundreds of programmable quilting patterns.  We selected a pattern, told it the size and hit “start” and it did this wonderful all over flower design.  You do have to roll the quilt and start the machine up, but it remembers where it left off each time – genius!
briar_rose_quilt_pattern_13
Here you can see the quilt design up close – I could not do this free hand!
briar_rose_quilt_pattern_15
We got home from the quilter and added the binding – Two days from start to finish!!  Not bad for a 14 year old :)
briar_rose_quilt_pattern_14
briar_rose_quilt_pattern_16
briar_rose_quilt_pattern_17
Of course Ella wanted minky on the back of the quilt – she is such a snugly person!  Love the fun green color.

briar_rose_quilt_pattern_18
Signature


Photobucket

14 comments:

  1. That is so pretty and she did an awesome job on it. Thanks for the pattern.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Don't know what I love more...the quilt or the fact that you and your daughter worked on this together. She did an awesome job. I am intrigued by the computer attachment to the long arm...neat!

    ReplyDelete
  3. That is such an adorable quilt! I can't believe it was made by a 14-year-old. Great job!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Love the quilt. It is awesome that your daughter likes to quilt with you. Thanks for the pattern

    ReplyDelete
  5. great job by your daughter - a beautiful quilt that she will cherish all the more because she made it herself. I find it hard to get good corners when binding a quilt with a minky back, so the last one I made I rounded the corner slightly, sewed a continuous stitch around the quilt and the binding came out smooth as silk - so much easier.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Definitely one of the nicest uses of briar rose I've seen! Great design.

    ReplyDelete
  7. This is so beautiful! I love a good Briar Rose quilt. ;)

    ReplyDelete
  8. Wow what a cute quilt! The design is really awesome!

    ReplyDelete
  9. She did a fabulous job! The fabrics are lovely, too.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Wow great job! I can't wait to make this quilt for myself! I have been looking for one that would be simple but have some variety and I think this one is finally it! I am going to try and make this up and use it for family pics this October! Thanks. I can't wait to get started!

    ReplyDelete
  11. She did a fabulous job. She truly has the quilting bug now.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Great job! This is where the quilty madness begins :). You'll now have to get her her own machine!

    ReplyDelete

Thank you so much for commenting! A lot of love and hard work is put into each and every one of these quilts, comments are always appreciated!