Bold Burst Quilt Pattern Release!
The next quilt pattern in the Colorfun Quilts lineup is the Bold Burst Quilt. It's such a fun one to make and is FQ, yardage, and scrappy friendly. So here's the cover quilt that I've been working on for the past couple of months. It uses half square triangles (HSTs) and half rectangle triangles (HRTs) to create a fun quilt with lots of spunk!
I started the design for this quilt with a stack of fat quarters that were calling my name but had no plan. So I decided it was time to conquer the HRT and this quilt was born! Aren't these colors so happy?!
Sewing the blocks
So now that all their pretty photos were taken, it was time to get cutting. For this quilt, I decided to make the throw size and needed 16 FQs for the pattern. I choose to use a mix of scrappy white tone on tone prints for my background fabric as well. From each FQ, the same number of pieces are cut to create 4 of each of the blocks for an even distribution of color.
In total from each FQ you'll get:
- 4 small HSTs
- 4 large HSTs
- 4 left angled HRTs
- 4 right angled HRTs
If you're like me and have never attempted the illusive HRT before, have no fear! I have a video tutorial on sewing both the HRT and HST blocks for this quilt.
Half Rectangle Triangles Half Square Triangles
The next stage is to mix and match so that each quadrant of the quilt has an even mixture of prints and patterns. In each of the 4 piles are one of each of the blocks listed above.
After our blocks are done, it's time to build the quilt top! The pattern takes you through building the pinwheel quadrants, then the larger blocks and finally the 4 units needed to make the larger quilt top. Isn't it pretty? Finding the perfect backing was the next task. It took longer than I hoped to find the right thing, and shopping online was more difficult to color match than I expected, but I think the backing will be perfect!
Quilting
From here, the quilt was pin basted and I started sketching ideas for my quilt designs. I really wanted to highlight the bursting effect from the small HST blocks spreading out into the larger blocks. So my straight line quilting accentuates that with denser lines at the intersections of the small HSTs. I choose to pin baste my quilts and work from the center out when I do my machine quilting. I also like to use the coloring page printouts from my PDF patterns to draw my quilt plan before I get started.
I quilt on my Juki TL2010Q and absolutely love it! This quilt measures 72" square, so it's a fairly large size throw and my machine is a total workhorse. Overall, this quilting went pretty fast. I worked in quadrants, rotating the quilt as I go.
Tips for quilting:
1. Use quilting gloves. They make a huge difference!! You can get gloves from most quilting stores, but I just use grippy gardening gloves from any hardware store. These ones are in my opinion, better than the fancy quilt specific gloves that I've purchased in the past and way cheaper.
2. Go slow. I know this seems obvious, but you'll have way more control as you sew if you take your time. And your stitches will be prettier too.
3. Use a walking foot. This is a biggie! The even feed on your walking foot will make all the difference and help to give you that control.
4. adjust your hands often. Avoid drag my adjusting your hands and fluffing/shifting your quilt often.
5. Use the needle down position if you have it. If you don't, remember to put your needle down before adjusting your hands/quilt.
My quilting preferences:
- I sew on a Juki 2010TLQ. It's a great machine that does straight stitch only and has a needle down position. However, I learned to sew and quilted many quilts on my very basic Singer Tradition sewing machine. So, no matter what machine you have, this design is totally doable!!
- I always use a walking foot and wear my gardening gloves when quilting.
- I prefer to stitch with 50 wt cotton thread. Currently, I'm liking connecting threads silver colored thread.
- I quilt with a stitch length of about 2.5. I prefer a slightly tighter quilting stitch, though I know some people use up to a 3.5 length.
- I also quilt on a clean table that allows me to shift my quilt as needed without knocking things over and without catching on anything. You'll notice my quilt top is really spread out when I quilt so it has room to move with me as I go.
Finishing the quilt
Once I'm finished with my quilting, the next step is to lay the quilt top on the floor so I can trim my edges and square up the quilt. Without fail, if I place a quilt on the floor, the dogs immediately walk/sit/lay on it. They must love quilts as much as I do! It's hard to resist those cute little faces, but eventually I got them off so I could prep the quilt for binding.
I choose to machine bind my quilts for a number of reasons.
1. It's faster and by this stage in the process, I'm really excited to be done!
2. I like the neat finish of the machine topstitching on the front of the quilt.
3. I think the machine stitching is stronger and will last with more extensive use and washes.
4. I really don't like hand stitching!
I machine stitch my binding to the back of the quilt first and do a continuous corner without cutting my thread. After it's attached to the back, I flip it around to the front and top stitch. I used to press my binding towards the front after sewing to the back, but over time I've realized that's an unnecessary step for me. I also used to clip/pin my edges before sewing, but now I just go for it and flip my binding to the front as I move along the quilt. I make my binding on the grain and it's worked great for me over the years. I also cut my binding to 2.25" and fold in half. This is what works well for my machine, but most people recommend a 2.5" binding.
Machine binding tips:
- Roll your pressed binding on an old spool, then pop that binding spool on your secondary thread pin and get binding! This is a great way to keep the binding out of your lap and keeps it from getting twisted and tangled in the process.
- Use an awl, or your seam ripper to help push and guide thick binding seams through your machine.
- Use your walking foot for all stages of binding. It makes a huge difference and keeps your stitching more consistent.
- Go slow and take your time. Even binding on the machine at a slow pace will be 2x as fast as binding by hand!
Here are some timelapse videos of me binding. First attaching to the back of the quilt. Then stitching to the front!
And finally, the finished quilt! Isn't it lovely??
Purchase Bold Burst Quilt pattern!
Would you like to make your own beautiful version of this quilt? This pattern is now available for purchase at colorfunquilts.com. It's such a fun quilt to make and comes in 3 sizes: baby, throw, and king. The pattern uses HST and HRT blocks only and is FQ, yardage, or scrap friendly! Grab yours today!
I'd love to see the beautiful quilts that you make! Thanks for stopping by. If you have questions about this tutorial, or want to share your quilts, please share below in the comments.
Happy Sewing!
- Erin
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