Those of you who were hanging around my Instagram feed last October might remember a frenzy of secret quilting for a project that needed to be posted to the States in just one week - well that was the Summer Dance Quilt on it’s way to Quilt Con Together Magazine!

You might think that when submitting the pattern idea I should’ve gotten started making the quilt instead of leaving it to the last minute to sew up a storm and not getting much sleep trying to make the deadline, but knowing how high the standard is at QuiltCon I honestly did not expect it to be chosen! I submitted the design on the distant off-chance that it would be picked as I didn’t want to regret not putting myself forward and had actually planned to sew it up at some undetermined far-off future date.

To celebrate the start of QuiltCon Together, here’s a little behind-the-scenes look at making Summer Dance.

Inspiration

Making use of negative space and a dynamic block arrangement, "Summer Dance" recalls butterflies dancing on hot summer days. In a year when many of us have had to stay at home to protect others, the image of butterflies dancing freely resonated deeply with me, and so this quilt aims to bring a little of that carefree joy back into our lives. Assembled using simple but small curved blocks, this 48” x 64” throw sized quilt is a great skill builder for the experienced curve sewist.

Fabrics

With such a short turnaround time between having my design accepted and needing to get it posted off to the States, I didn’t have much time to think about fabric choices so decided to stick with solids. I made a mad dash to my LQS praying all the way that they’d have everything I needed in stock, and while they thankfully had all of the colours and a great mix of 28wt Aurifil threads (I had no idea what my quilting plan was at that point so grabbed all the co-ordinating colours) disaster struck when they were clean out of all their white solids!

This was back in October when the UK was still in the middle of a white fabric shortage and it was hard to get hold of any no matter where you looked - so obviously the perfect time to be making a white quilt with a fast turnaround time. After desperately searching online I managed to find some Kona Cotton Snow and ordered what I needed and spent the next 24 hours pacing waiting for the postman to arrive. Unfortunately when he did, it was the wrong white! Never having used Kona Snow before I’d taken a gamble that it would be a nice bright white when it’s actually more of a cream which absolutely would not work with the colours I’d picked and already cut out ready for sewing. Thankfully I remembered that I’d previously used Confetti Cotton in white which definitely was the right white and after hunting high and low found a UK stockist with just enough in stock and could post out the same day. This time when the postman arrived all was well and the right white had finally arrived. Who says quilting has no drama!

The fabrics I ended up using were: Moda Bella Solids in Sunflower, Mist, Jade, Dark Teal and Nautical Blue with Riley Blake Confetti Cotton White for the background and Makower UK Clara Trees in Blue as the backing. I also used the Moda Bella Sunflower for the binding.

Piecing and quilting

Despite having quite a few curves, the assembly of Summer Dance is actually pretty straightforward. In fact the only reason it’s rated as Intermediate is because the curves are so small that they’re a bit fiddly even if you’ve sewn larger curves before. The butterfly blocks are pieced using a Quarter-Square Triangle (QST) layout and then arranged in columns to give the effect of a kaleidoscope of butterflies dancing in the summer breeze (isn’t that the most perfect name for a group of butterflies?).

Thanks to a slight cutting error when piecing my backing (top tip: don’t cut fabric late at night when you’re tired!), I didn’t have quite enough to have the directional fabric all going the same way so I decided to add a little striped block using the butterfly colours. I’m pretty pleased with how well the pattern colours match and I think the extra detail adds some more interest to the back.

When it came to the quilting plan I wanted to try and make the butterflies dance and so I took inspiration from the wonderful book Walk by Jacquie Gering and opted for some 1/2” echo quilting to create movement. Looking back I probably should have saved myself some time and stress with such a quick turnaround time and opted for something simpler, but I just knew that it would look great so persevered and wrestled the quilt for around 16 hours of quilting time in two days. Thank goodness my machine has a large throat space for all that turning! I went back and forth for ages trying to decide if I should also quilt the butterflies, and even tried a few different things out on one, but in the end decided that the design was more effective with the butterflies left to pop on their own.

And there you have it!

I really enjoyed designing and making this quilt despite the time pressure and the difficulties getting the right white, and am so honoured that it has been included in Quilt Con Together Magazine and the QuiltCon quilt show.