The Battenburg Quilt

I bought a fat quarter pack of 8 fabrics from Cotton Patch of the Dan Bennett Cosmos Daydream range ages ago when they were first advertised and the plan was to make a quilt for the snug.  I also got some plain cotton sheeting in a purple/pinky colour from Abakhan to go with it.

I didn't really decide on a design at first but I had some ideas about a trellis type pattern (squares on point).  Then I saw some pictures of a disappearing 4 patch  - this one in-fact, and fell in love with the design so had to start straight away!

From each FQ cut 3 strips 5'' by 22'' then cut these into 4 5''x5'' squares so you end up with 12 squares from each FQ. Also cut 3 strips 1.5'' by 22 - you might only get 2 strips depending on how well the FQ has been cut, these will be used for border.

Cut the same number of 5'x5' squares from the plain fabric, then join each patterned square to a plain one, and join two of these pairs to make a square.

Then to make the disappearing 4 patch, cut an inch either side of the centre seam in both the horizontal directions, then rotate each of the middle strips so you end up with something looking like this:

Then join everything back together!

And you end up with a stack of 48 disappearing 4 patch squares...

These I joined into 8 rows of 6 patches. Then I cut 1.5'' strips from the plain fabric for the first border.  The strips I cut from the patterned fabric were joined together and used to create the second border. I had just about enough fabric to make these 2.5'' wide and be long enough to get around the entire quilt.  I would have liked a wider outer border but there wasn't enough fabric - I used up every last scrap of the FQ's, so much so that if you look closely you might see a tiny bit of selvedge!!

Once I'd finished the top, I got distracted with making other things (clothes, and quilts as presents), and this sat languishing in the drawer for nearly a year.  But this spring, I decided to clear out some of the backlog of planned projects and WIPs so this top came out and was pinned and quilted.

I've gone with free motion quilting on the 4 patch centre as I need the practise!  My speed of movement/speed of needle still isn't perfect so the thread tension is a bit off on the back but I'm definitely getting better.  For the borders I quilted the ditches and 0.5'' from the seams, then bound the quilt with more plain fabric.

The backing fabric came from the fabric bins at Abakhan (the teal block-work one is left over from the unfinished/unblogged Wintersmith quilt, I really need to crack on with that one!)

This one is mine.

Linking up to Sew Cute Tuesday at Blossom Heart Quilts