Hello Petal Layer Cake Quilt

Another quilt on the pre-baby list done! Another one not for us or for baby, but for my oldest friend who turned 30 this month. Slowly but surely I am getting through the list for others (ok, maybe not so slowly, I'm just impatient!) and then I'll spend the last couple of weeks making what I can for the baby. It makes me glad I've been handstitching the hexie quilt for my little one because I'm enjoying working on it each evening.

In my last post, I wrote about taking short cuts to help me get these quilts finished. I bought this Hello Petal Layer cake for my friend's quilt so I could sew it up quickly with minimal cutting and no time choosing colours (even though that's usually my favourite part!) While I was deciding what kind of design to make, I was really drawn to Rachel's Penny Patch quilt and Blue Elephant Stitches' Granny Square Quilt. I love the 2.5" squares in both and I considered for a while adjusting the pattern for either to work with a layer cake. In the end, I just couldn't bare chopping those little girls' heads off and came up with this design to make the most of the mix of basic prints and illustrations.

 I split my pile of 42 squares into three piles:
- Prints I wanted to keep completely intact.
- Prints that could work cut into 4.5" squares, and co-ordinating basics to match each one.
- Prints that would work cut into 2.5" squares and basics to match each one.



First I worked on the pile that would be little postage stamp (2.5" squares) blocks. I cut the first 10" block into 4 x 2.5" strips. Then repeated with the co-ordinating print. This makes two identical blocks.

Sew them together, 4 strips for each block, alternating in print.

Cut these into 2.5" strips across the grain.

Sew them back together like the picture above. Continue this method with the rest of that pile of 10" squares.

Then, onto the pile of prints for 4.5" squares. Cut 2 x 4.5" strips from the 10" block. Then cut 4.5" squares from those strips. Repeat with the co-ordinating print and sew 2 identical blocks together like the picture below.

The final blocks need to be trimmed to 8.5" square.

Once you've sewn/trimmed all your blocks (they should all be 8.5" square), work out your desired layout. I like that this layer cake came with 42 squares, making an easy 6x7 block layout. Sew together in rows, then sew the rows together.

I was so tempted to really heavily quilt this, but kept mysef in check with the limited time I have available, and went for a simple diagonal design.

I backed it with this numbers prints again, even though it didn't go perfectly. 150cm wide is just too easy for a single quilt back, exactly what one looks for making a quilt 35 weeks pregnant!