A New Pattern from Tied With a Ribbon
I've tested several patterns for Jemima at Tied With a Ribbon, and each one has been delightful in its own way. Her designs are bold graphically, and fun and satisfying to make.
Jemima's patterns are often skill builders, which is my favorite kind of project. I want to know how to make all the things! Choose Your Own Adventure is a foundation paper pieced (fpp) pattern, and I was especially eager to get to test this one as I'd never made a complete quilt using fpp... I was basically a newbie for this technique.
This is the *perfect* pattern to learn foundation paper piecing. It's a simple design, repeated for each block, so you can get into the groove of how paper piecing works. This was so useful for me since fpp always seemed backwards and counterintuitive ("Which is the front and the back? Where do I put the next piece?"). But with the repetition in this quilt, I really got a feel for how it all works. Plus, the result is a beautiful and dramatic graphic design.
First, the supplies:
I started my fabric pull with a beautiful bundle curated by Alicia at Wild Blooms Quilt Co. It is a mix of florals from several Art Gallery collections with a fall vibe.
Then I started adding to the collection with pieces from my stash, and ended up with this:
Now, this is a lot of fabric, and the pattern actually only calls for 7 different fabrics, plus the background fabric. I was going for a range of fabrics for each of the 7 colors needed, which is why I ended up with so many fabrics. (I used less than a fat quarter's worth of each fabric, if you're trying to duplicate this technique.)
The pattern includes the foundation paper template, of which you can make copies on your printer, or you can also purchase this paper pack, which I did, and it was a huge time saver:
It has all the papers needed, plus a few extras.
Because it is an FPP pattern, perfect points are perfectly achievable!
Once the quilt top was together, it was time to remove the papers... this took a while! I made it a bit harder on myself- I should have removed the papers before sewing the rows together. But an evening watching Netflix and I was done!
I normally don't take quilt in the wild photos until a quilt is completed, but we happened to have a trip scheduled and I didn't have time to quilt it, so I just took the quilt top instead. I'm so glad we did, because we had some great photo opportunities:
These were taken in the sculpture garden at the Crystal Bridges Museum in Bentonville, Arkansas.
If you're ever in the area, it's worth stopping by- a nice collection of American Art, and beautiful grounds and trails. They've also got an expansion project in the works.
Once we got back, I loaded the quilt top onto the longarm and got to quilting! I chose The Longarm League's Diamond Loops edge to edge pantograph for the quilting design- I've used it before and it always turns out great. If you're sending your quilt top to a longarm quilter and have any variation of diamonds in your piecing, it will look great. If you're a longarmer, you'll love this panto- simple, quick stitch out, very easy to align, great texture, and sizes up or down nicely.
Once it was all quilted, trimmed and bound, we headed out to a pumpkin patch for some fall photos. It was actually Halloween, so the patch was... rather busy... but we still got some great shots:
And that's a wrap! I really love this quilt pattern; it's one of those I'll make again. You can find other tester versions and a whole other colourway Jemima designed on Instagram: #chooseyourownadventurequilt and you can get your own pdf version of the pattern on her website: Tied With a Ribbon Choose Your Own Adventure Quilt
Happy quilting, and Happy Fall!
