More Little Folks Dot In The Middle Quilt

As promised here are some more Little Folks Dot In The Middle quilt pics after my blogger frustrations yesterday.

I dithered for quite a long time before I took the plunge and bought some Little Folks. I don't know what held me back. I guess I'm a bit cautious of so much pattern and colour in each fabric, it can be a bit overwhelming if you want to make a quilt I find. But I kept seeing quilts I loved made in Little Folks, here and here.

In the end I decided to go for fat quarters and have a play. As soon as the fabrics came I was in love. They feel sooooo lovely. But I could see straight away that i) any pattern had to have big pieces to make the most of the patterns within the fabrics ii)I needed something to tone down the exuberance a bit ( I'm so English and reserved, I know it!).

After my Hope Valley Baskets success, using a traditional block pattern, tempering colours with a grey, I decided to take the same approach. I used an album block (often used in the past for quilts where the participants would add their names, for charity quilts, or as a parting gift to a member of the community moving away etc). The blocks came together really quickly ( they are 12' x12') but when I laid them out I felt like the middle of the block was just too bare! It's well known that I can seldom make a quilt without circles, so I started with a large circle applique based on drawing around a cup. I strip pieced a square of fabric using the 4 fabrics in the block and then using freezer paper made a circle. But it looked too big. I decided to downscale dramatically, made a dot, based on drawing around a cotton reel ( YLI cotton quilting thread) and ironed over two fabrics pieced together so I had a little half and half dot. Then I appliqued them on. I counted the colours wrongly and ended up with an extra blue. Rather than fiddle about again I decided to adopt the 'humility block' approach and popped the little blue button in the yellow block.

I think I love it! Now I have to plan some quilting. I want to do something a bit more decorative than my normal style. I especially love how the quilting works on this quilt. I'm inspired by old quilts with their elaborate quilting patterns, so I'm off to do some research.

p.s Have you got your copy of Fat Quarterly yet? It's fab, do go and buy one here