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Shannon Fraser Designs

Spreading quilty joy one stitch at a time!

Kaleidoscope Festival Quilt

August 16, 2016 by Shannon 8 Comments

Triangle block details of the Festival Quilt featuring Kaleidoscope Collection | Shannon Fraser Designs #quilting

Remember that secret project I was working on earlier this year?! Well, I’m so excited that I finally get to share it with you!! 

You know my love for Camelot Fabrics (you can see my other collaborations with them: here, here, and here), so I was thrilled to get to play with their Kaleidoscope line.  It’s a gorgeous geometric line featuring these soft creams, yellows, coral, aqua, and lilac with a shot of dark indigo. Love! 

Festival Quilt hanging on a ladder against a barn with a dog in the window | Kaleidoscope Festival Quilt | Shannon Fraser Designs #quiltsinthewild

The project I was asked to create was the Festival Quilt designed by Anne Sullivan of Play-Crafts. And I was super excited that the quilt was to be photographed for Craft of Quilting. First time hearing of them? They sell quilt kits, fabric, notions, and tools all to help us get our quilty on! If you live in New Hampshire, they have a quilt shop called Keepsake Quilting Shop located on Main Street which I would love to visit one day. Alas, for now, I’ll have to settle for ogling their goods online 😉

So back to the fun Festival Quilt! 

As always, I start with preparing my fabric and cutting up and labelling all my pieces. There are lots of them. Ten different fabrics are involved, in fact, excluding the binding and backing, and there is lots of sub-cutting involved. So make sure to keep those puppies labeled to avoid confusion later on. My post-it notes kept me nicely on track! 

There are a few steps to tackle in creating these blocks, but overall they come together quite nicely. 

You start off with making your central squares. This step is really straightforward and quite relaxing! I do love a good chain piecing session and that’s what this step was all about. Plus, I just loved the large central square that really showcases the beautiful fabric. 

Kaleidoscope fabric cut up and ready to be pieced into the Festival Quilt | Shannon Fraser Designs #quilting #quiltblocks #fabric

From there you move on to joining your smaller 7 ½” x 8” rectangles. Another chain piecing session – easy peasy! Just make sure you join them on the 7 ½” edge and not the longer 8” edge. This is critical. Otherwise, you won’t end up with a series of 7 ½” continuously joined squares at the end and that would be a bummer. 

Now for the tricky bit. You need to cut triangles from that continuous strip along the 45° angle between the seams of each square. I would caution how you cut and trim them. I did multiple trials of this stage, as mine ended up being a little short.  Actually a lot short – like ½” short in some cases.  Which, in quilting terms, can make or break your design.  Thankfully, you’re working with triangles cut on a bias, so they had a little wiggle room, but definitely not something you want to rely on. Take your time and measure, measure, measure! 

Cutting up triangles for the Festival quilt | Kaleidoscope Collection | Shannon Fraser Designs #quilting

I was a little sad to be cutting off the top of each triangle, but I was consoled once I started adding the darker fabric triangle tips. They looked so cute once all sew together. Plus it was another marathon piecing session, which, as you know by now, is one of my fave quilting activities! 

Once you have your large central squares and your triangles all ready to go, now comes the fun step of attaching those together to finish your extra-large blocks on point! And I do mean large. Each one finishes at 20 ½”. If you didn’t cut and trim your triangles properly, this is where you will run into problems. Your triangles need to overlap at the very edge just a little. Otherwise, you will have gaps in your squares and you won’t have any wiggle room to square up. So be forewarned. I spent a lot of time with my seam ripper to get them to be just right. 

Triangles pieced and ready to attach to center Festival quilt squares | Kaleidoscope collection | Shannon Fraser Designs #piecing

Note, the pattern informs you to attach the triangles based on the layout in the cover photo. But since you are first told to join the 7 ½” x 8” rectangles in random order, this was a little tough to do. So I placed them based on what felt aesthetically right to me. 

Once you have your blocks nicely squared up, it’s just a matter of joining them in rows based on the design layout. And since the blocks are so big, this quilt top comes together in no time before finishing it off with a large 5 ½” border. 

Completing Festival quilt blocks with triangles and attaching border | Kaleidoscope collection | Shannon Fraser Designs #quilting

When it came time to quilt, I decided to stitch in the ditch to emphasize the large piecing in each block. The fabric is just so gorgeous, I really wanted the focus to be on that. Do you love my rubber gloves “quilting gloves”?! (Apologies for the dark photo, this was a late-night quilting session. I was on a tight deadline!!). 

Festival Quilt featuring Kaleidoscope collection | Shannon Fraser Designs #quilt
Festival Quilt featuring Kaleidoscope Collection | Shannon Fraser Designs #quiltsinthewild

For more projects featuring Camelot Fabrics, check out these posts:

  • Saybrook Island Pillow
  • Mickey Mouse & Friends quilted table runner
  • Whimsical Quilt
  • Wildflower fold-over clutches

I finished by hand sewing the binding to the back all snuggled up underneath her on a snowy January day – total bliss! 

The quilt kit is still available at Craft of Quilting and, last I checked, she’s on sale. If you want to give her a go, now’s the time to pick it up! Do tag me on Instagram @shannonfraserdesigns so I can see your project – I’m curious to see how you would quilt her up!

Happy quilting!

xo

Shannon


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Filed Under: Quilting Tagged With: Camelot Fabrics, Fabric, Quilt Market, Quilting

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Comments

  1. Sharon says

    August 16, 2016 at 2:37 pm

    Fabulous quilt! I can see why you loved this fabric, it works great with your pattern.

    Reply
    • Shannon says

      August 16, 2016 at 7:17 pm

      Thank you, Sharon! So happy you like the quilt 🙂

      Reply
  2. Marla says

    August 18, 2016 at 3:06 pm

    Great photos. You are such an organized sewist

    Reply
    • Shannon says

      August 18, 2016 at 4:27 pm

      Thank you, Marla! I really enjoy photography and have been trying to up my photography game over the years. Plus it's fun to look back over a project and see what steps I had to tackle to complete the quilt!

      Reply
  3. Izzy says

    August 21, 2016 at 1:24 pm

    Really cool design and the fabrics are lovely. And this is such a detailed, helpful post! 🙂

    Reply
    • Shannon says

      August 23, 2016 at 1:50 am

      Yay, I'm so happy you found it helpful, Izzy!

      Reply
  4. Sharon says

    August 22, 2016 at 3:52 pm

    Hi Shannon! I love this quilt! and your photography is wonderful! Also wanted to let you know I have nominated you for the One Lovely Blog Award, but I don't have your email to notify you. Anyway…please go to my blog and you will find the details there. yellowcatquiltdesigns.com

    Reply
    • Shannon says

      August 23, 2016 at 1:50 am

      Oh, you are so sweet, Sharon! Thank you for the nomination 🙂

      Reply

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Hi! I'm Shannon. A modern quilt pattern designer based in Montreal. My quilting journey started by stumbling upon a half square triangle tutorial and I've been hooked since. I'm now spreading that quilty joy to you! Read More…

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