A Few More 3-Yard Quilts

I first discovered 3-yard quilts through this video from Missouri Star Quilt Company, and I think I've become addicted to them. Here's why I like them so much:

• the patterns are generally simple and quick to finish
• ideal size for covering up while watching TV, working on a craft, reading or napping. With a minky backing, they are extra cozy
• great size for baby quilts. I know that the recommendation is not to have a quilt in the crib until the baby is at least 12 months old, but it's still a great size for once they are 12-18 months or when they graduate to a toddler bed or for a nap even when they get older, as long as the fabric is not too baby-ish
• perfect size for chemo quilts, a quilt gifted to someone who is undergoing cancer treatment or maybe even dialysis or other medical treatment. It's big enough to cover the individual, without it dragging on the floor. And trust me on this, you do not want your quilt on the floor in a hospital!
• the patterns also offer the option of making the quilt bigger without me having to do the recalculations
• a lot of the patterns have larger piecing, so I can use larger prints/focus fabrics
• if I find a fabric that I love, I know I can just buy a yard or a metre, and, together with a couple of coordinating yards/metres, plus 3 yards for the backing, I can have a quilt. That way, even if I don't have a quilt in mind, I know how much to buy.
• my local quilt shop sells it's older fabric/bolt leftovers in precut metres for $8/metre, so I can pop in, find 3 coordinating metres and have a quilt top for $24 (plus GST)
• when I need a quilt in a hurry, I can usually find one that fits the occasion

Because of the butterly fabric, I decided to call this one Take Flight. It was one that I needed in a hurry, and I used fabrics from my stash. In this case, I didn't have quite enough of the black butterfly print or the turquoise tropical print, so I used both. This is the Landslide pattern from the book, Quilts in a Jiffy. 

I used the Butterfly Charm pantograph for the quilting. 

A peach coloured dot minky was my choice for backing. 

The recipient of this quilt said that her favourite colours were blues, but that she also liked autumn colours. So, I was walking up and down the aisles of my local quilt shop, looking for inspiration, when I spied this delightful blue floral fabric from a couple of aisles over. Then I had to decide what fabrics to coordinate it with. Like the soccer fabric in the Game On quilt, it's a large and strong print, so I found solids to be the best choice. This is the Crossroads pattern, also from Quilts in a Jiffy. But I named mine Garden Path (not to be confused with the Fabric Cafe pattern by that name).

Backed with blue minky and quilted with Floral Branch. 

Heard It Through the Grapevine was again made with stash fabrics. The two grapevine fabrics were left over from My Beloved's Vineyard, and I used the same Vineyard pantograph to quilt it.

This is a quilt that I'm keeping, and it's in my living room for snuggling on the sofa. It was made from the Snowball pattern, but I opted not to do the pieced side borders and instead made two full unpieced borders.

A lot of people seem to reallly like blue as I have made several blue quilts. This one, which I called Patches of Blue is made from the Wonderland pattern in the book Make It Christmas. 

Aside from the minky backing, the fabric was pulled from my stash. I quilted it using the Tweet Tweet pantograph. 

Finally, I want to share with you Splendour, which can be found as Splendor in the book The Magic of 3-Yard Quilts. I think this is a great example of how you can take 3 entirely different fabrics, that aren't even from the same manufacturer and make a stunning quilt. This one was a little more complex than the average 3-yard quilt pattern as the instructions said to draw a diagonal line on half of the Fabric #2 rectangles and line it up with the opposite diagonal on the Farbric #1 rectangles and stitch ¼" on each side of the line, just as you would for HSTs, except reversing the direction of the diagonal for the other half of the rectangles. But I just couldn't see how it would work out evenly as it wasn't lining up for me. Rather than chance having to rip out stitches, I chose instead to just cut all of the rectangles apart diagonally and sew them together individually, making sure to do half one way and half the other. Unlike squares it makes a difference which diagonal you use. And I think it turned out splendid. 

I used a cotton backing and Feather Meander for the quilting. 
That's it for now, but I'm sure there will be more 3-yard quilts in my future. I've already got the fabric for one for my great great nephew, due to arrive in June.