let's get campy! birch feather river quilt tutorial

My little Henry man is an avid outdoorsman. And by that I mean he enjoys playing in rocks and occasionally putting them in his mouth. The Hubs is trying to cultivate this into something useful by taking him camping. After an initial failed attempt at backyard camping (lasted all of 1 hour), they have successfully completed an entire night in the tent! Not the tent in the picture above, obviously. An actual tent. Because they didn't want to sleep with bugs and bunnies.

Then Birch fabric goes and comes out with quilts with tiny little campers on them? DONE.

I immediately made Henry a camping inspired quilt. Duh. Like I had a choice.

This is a really simple paver-style (I made that name up) quilt pattern and is a fantastic way to showcase this or any fat quarter bundle. I wish that nugget of knowledge was from my brain, but it's from Callie, the City Craft guru. But she's totally right. The blocks are perfectly sized to show off the pattern of each fabric.

The finished quilt is approximately 42" x 54", which is the perfect size for playing and snuggling. Oh, and camping.

If you're like, "whoa, Tara. That's cute and all, but ain't nobody got time for that!" just jump to the end. I have a time saving solution for you.

On with the tutorial!





THE GOODS

• The Birch Feather River Fat Quarter Bundle from City Craft- you will have some left over. Hooray!
• 1.5 yards quilting cotton for the back. I used the Feather River Patch also from City Craft
• Batting - I used low loft cotton
• Coordinating thread
• Binding, or .5 yards of fabric to make your own

CUT YOUR FABRIC: Iron your fat quarters first. Trust me, it's waaaay better to do this now than iron 144 little bricks. Not that I forgot this fact and only remembered halfway through the cutting process. Nope, not me.

Since I was using the grid patchwork pattern for my backing, I wanted the blocks on the quilt top to be similar in size (or it would drive me crazy). From each fat quarter, cut 12 strips 3.25"h x 8.75"w. See the diagram below. Three of these strips put together makes an 8.75" block, which just happens to be the same size as 4 of the squares on the patchwork pattern once the block is all sewn together. The designer in me did a somersault when I worked that math out.

I am all about saving scraps, so I cut the 8.75" columns first, took off this awesome piece of scrap at the end, and then cut my 3.25" rows. Make sense? That way I have nice big scraps to use for future projects. Waste not, want not.

I did not use the patchwork fabric that was included in my fat quarter bundle, because it would have just looked odd cut into strips. I'm saving that for a future project. Stay tuned.

MAKE YOUR BLOCKS: This is the fun part. Each block has 3 pieces of fabric. The FQ bundle had 7 fabrics with white backgrounds and 5 with colorful backgrounds (once I removed that patchwork one). I wanted my blocks to be a nice mix of colorful fabrics and neutral ones. I followed the following general guidelines when assembling my blocks:

• No 2 pieces from the same pattern in each block.
• No 2 brightly colored pieces right next to each other.
• Every block should have at least 1 piece of colorful fabric in it.
• Bears and cars should not be upside down. It's against the laws of nature.

I also broke these guidelines a handful of times when it made sense. That's why they are guidelines and not rules. It's your quilt top, so you can do what you want.

I laid all 12 fabrics out and started designing the blocks. I would strongly advise you look at each block before you commit to it, and make a stack of all of your blocks before you begin sewing. You don't want to end up with a whole bunch of one fabric left over.

Once you have your stack of blocks, sew them together. Look at this handy GIF I made to show you how! Use a 1/4" seam allowance and stitch the top to the middle, and then the middle to the bottom. Then press your seams. I pressed to the side because it's faster than pressing them open and I'm impatient.

LAY OUT THE QUILT: I'm not great with random. If you ever see me make anything "random", know that most of the time I've tried really hard to make it look that way. I think about every fabric before I sew it in. In this instance, I didn't want part of the quilt to have a big blob of blue while the rest was blue-less, or all of your bears hanging out at the top of the quilt while the bottom was bear-free. That would be sad.

I started with my favorite block in the center and began laying the others around it. You'll have 7 rows of 5 blocks (got that? 7 rows from top to bottom, 5 blocks across. I'm not belittling you. Math is just hard). You'll have a few blocks left over. 10 to be exact. Save them for that awesome future project that I have in my head and will share with you in the next couple of weeks.

You're going to quarter-turn every other block, which just means one block will run horizontally, the next vertically, the next horizontally, and so on. A good way to do this is lay out your backer fabric and line up your blocks with the grid pattern below (if you're anal like me, at least). 

Then once it was all laid out, I shifted things around to get a good distribution of pattern and color.

Ah, good. That'll work. Max seems a little concerned (Really Mom? That's what you're going with?, but he can get over it.

SEW THE QUILT TOP: Grab your top row and stitch them together using a 1/4" seam allowance. Once you have all 7 rows, press the seams to the side. Then sew your 7 rows together. Press the whole thing.

Have your baby crawl all over it after you press it so you can press it again, just for kicks.

QUILT THIS BAD BOY: I wanted the blocks on the top to align with the "blocks" on my bottom fabric. I laid out my batting and then added the back fabric to it. I marked the center with a pin, and then added a few others to keep it stable.

I flipped the whole thing over and laid the quilt top on top of the sandwich, and put the center block centered on the pin. That way the blocks (in theory) would align with the blocks on the bottom. It just needed to be pretty close. I'm not about perfection. Then pin the heck out of it. Or spray baste. What-evs.

I straight line quilted this at 1" (ish) increments. Good tip - start at the center and work your way out to help minimize pulling. 

Look! It's soooo pretty! I mean, er, manly.

TRIM AND BIND: Trim the quilt down and bind. You can buy quilt binding or make your own. I made my own using this tutorial which will also show you how to hand bind a quilt. I highly recommend hand binding. It looks SOOOOOO much nicer. And once you've done it a time or two, it goes fast. And it's oddly soothing. And you can do it in front of the TV if you're into that. I opted for binding while my children wrestled and listened to bluegrass music. Different strokes.

There you have it. Now you must take the quilt into the backyard with a tent and let your kid read books on it. That's a requirement.

I couldn't be happier with how this turned out. The colors are gorgeous. And I love how crinkly it gets once it goes through the wash. The boys have been dragging it all over the house since I finished it. Actually, even before I finished it. They were pretty excited about it.

TIME SAVING SHORTCUT: If you love the look of this but don't have time/patience/energy to cut all the FQs and assemble blocks, I have a solution for you. Buy 1.5 yards of the river patch backer fabric and 1.5 yards of a coordinating Birch Feather River pattern of your choice (I love this one myself) and use my quickie quilted blanket tutorial to quilt it up. It will look like you pieced all of those squares together yourself, you sly fox. It'll be our little secret.

SUPER TIME SAVING SHORTCUT: Commission your favorite quilting blogger (i.e. me) to make one for you. Email me for details at simplycraftedblog@gmail.com. 

Stay tuned for a future tutorial on how to use that patchwork FQ and 10 spare blocks. I'll come up with something cool....promise.

YOU MIGHT ALSO ENJOY:

DIY tent + nap mat

quilt as you go pillow sham

monogrammed quickie quilted blanket

cowboy vest tutorial

SPONSORED BY // CITY CRAFT. All thoughts and opinions are my own.