Jan 31

Jan 31 Picnic Blanket Quilt Pattern Release

I can't believe it's been a month since I've blogged, but it hasn't been for nothing...

It's here! It's HERE! You may have seen sneaks and peeks of my first full-blown quilt pattern, the Picnic Blanket, on instagram (oh, you haven't? Check out #picnicblanketquilt and keep reading!), but now you can buy it and make your own!

Buy on Etsy!

Buy on Craftsy!

This was the first pattern I've designed that I've had formally tested (aside from my friend Brooke's lightning-fast Star Snack Mat test!), and it went swimmingly. My testers had fabulous comments and feedback and pictures, and were so speedy that I'm dropping this pattern almost two weeks earlier than I expected! And, of course, it is full of cat pics. If that's what you're into.

The quilt has two sizes, a crib-size quilt (pictured) which is 33"x39" and a generously sized throw quilt that is 55"x65". I made my crib size quilt in some Cirrus solid scraps of coral, Kona white, and a super soft shot cotton that I was able to pull from trimmings of my Christmas Joy quilt backing! The back and binding is Kona berry, one of my absolute favorite Kona colors. I quilted it with a super simple straight line pattern that follows the gray grid, and to be honest, I didn't do a very good job. I don't know if it was my basting or how soft the shot-cotton gray was, but the middle strip warped something awful and is the reason I didn't include any straight-on shots! All of my testers were able to much more capably quilt their quilts, so don't let that scare you :)

This was also the first pattern I designed in EQ8 and brought all the way through the pattern writing process. Truly, quilting inspiration comes in weird places, and I love that, with EQ8, I can take this sock picture I stumbled across on pinterest, go "Huh, that would be kind of a cool quilt!" and then shuffle blocks and colors around without all of the erasing and pencil gunk required on graph paper until I have a quilt I'm happy with! Then, of course, the real work begins...

I'm so excited to see your versions of this quilt! Tag me @khquilts so I can see your finished product, and link it to the hashtags (#picnicblanketquilt / #khqpicnicblanketquilt / #khqpatterns) so everyone else can see it too!

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