Scottish Fantasia Quilt

It was quite by chance that I discovered the tile patterns that inspired this quilt. They were amongst a riot of different designs in St Andrew’s Cathedral in Inverness, Scotland and just cried out to be made. As you can see from the tiles themselves, the pinwheels with their bright white and rich green triangles bring your eye to focus on the central circle with its intricate cream pattern overlaid on a further circle of orange with an outer ring of blue. The four less intricately patterned corner tiles are edged in blue and surrounded by terracotta and four corner cream tiles.

Another feature that drew me to create this particular quilt was the dark brown and green outer zigzag border. This is a traditional border for quilts which is not often used, and here I achieved it by using the Seminole technique outlined in satin stitch. The corner blocks of the whole design are common to many tiled floors but here they look particularly attractive with their bright blue center squares.

My collection of marbled fabric (batiks) came into its own as I gathered the colors to make this quilt. The central design would not be easy to replicate, so I resolved this by cutting a square in rich blue and over laying a circle of a distinctive dark orange batik. Finding a fleur-de-lis quilting stencil allowed me to create my own applique interpretation of the cream central image on the tiles.

Materials and Tools:

1 yard medium brown binding
1-1/2 yards 100-percent cotton batting
1-1/2 yards your choice backing
1/2 yard fusible web
2 sheets of A4 paper — 8-1/2" x 11"
100-percent cotton fabrics — 44 inches wide
- 1/4 yard dark blue
- 1 yard peach
- 1/2 yard cream
- 1/4 yard white
- 1/4 yard vibrant orange
- 1 1/2 yards medium green
- 1/4 yard dark green
- 1 yard medium brown
- 1/2 yard dark brown

Cutting
Measurements include a 1/4-inch seam allowances.

1. From dark blue fabric cut four 4-1/2-inch squares; one 8-1/2-inch square; and four 3-3/4-inch squares. Cut the four 3-3/4-inch squares in half diagonally.

2. From the peach fabric cut two 2-1/2-inch wide strips. Cut these into 16, 2-1/2" x 4-1/2" rectangles. Cut eight 4-7/8-inch squares then cut in half diagonally. Cut four 3/3/4-inch squares then cut in half diagonally.

3. From the cream fabric cut one 2-1/2-inch wide strip. Cut the strip into 32 squares. Cut four 4-1/2-inch squares. Cut one 8-1/2-inch square. Cut four 2-7/8-inch squares then cut in half diagonally.

4. From the white fabric cut eight 3-3/4-inch squares, then cut in half diagonally.

5. From the vibrant orange fabric cut four 4-1/2-inch squares; and one, six-inch square.

6. From medium green fabric cut eight 1-7/8-inch strips. Cut 16, 2-1/2-inch squares.

7. From the dark green fabric, cut four 3-3/4-inch squares, then cut in half diagonally.

8. From the medium brown fabric, cut four 1-7/8-inch wide strips. Cut four 3-3/4-inch square then cut in half diagonally. Cut four, 2-1/2-inch wide strips for binding.

9. From dark brown fabric, cut 12, 2-7/8-inch squares. Cut eight 24-3/4" x 2-1/2" strips into 24 squares.

Block Assembly
All blocks are 8 inches finished.

Steps:
Block 1 (figure C)

1. Join a dark blue triangle to a small peach triangle. Make into a square by joining a large peach triangle to this unit. Repeat to make a second one

2. Make up the block by adding one 4-1/2-inch cream square and one 4-1/2-inch vibrant orange square.

3. Make four blocks.

Block 2 (figure D)

1. Join a dark green triangle to a white triangle to make a square and then repeat.

2. Join the medium brown and white triangles to make two squares in the same way.

3. Join the four squares together to form a pinwheel.

4. Join the small cream and brown triangles to form two squares. Attach a brown triangle to either side of the cream side of the square to form a large brown triangle with cream center.

5. Add two brown and cream triangle units to adjacent sides of the pinwheel. Add 3-3/4-inch peach triangles to the remaining sides of the pinwheel. Make four blocks.

Block 3 (figure E)

1. From the fusible web, cut one 8-1/2-inch square and one six-inch square.

2. Design a decorative symmetrical fleur-de-lis template to fit almost to the edges of the 8-1/2-inch square.

3. Trace it on to the back of the 8-1/2-inch square of web and then fuse it to the 8-1/2-inch cream square. Cut out the design.

4. Trace a 5-1/2-inch circle to the back on to the back of the six-inch square. Fuse to the six-inch vibrant orange square.

5. Cut out the circle and fuse it to the center of the 8-1/2-inch dark blue square. (To find the center, fold the square into four and place the circle centrally.

6. Satin stitch around the orange circle with matching thread. It helps to put some support underneath to add stability to the square, so use a page of A4 paper.

7. Place the cream stencil centrally over the blue square and fuse.

8. Satin-stitch around the stencil with matching thread, using the paper as before.

Block 4 (figure F)

1. Place a cream square on one corner of each peach rectangle. Machine stitch from corner to corner across it. Cut the surplus 1/4 inch from the stitch line.

2. Fold back the cream and press.

3. Repeat on opposite corner.

4. Make four identical units.

5. Lay out the units, the 2-1/2-inch medium green squares and the 4-1/2-inch blue squares to form the block and sew together in rows.

6. Sew the rows together to make the block.

7. Make four blocks.

Strip Set (figure G)

1. Join three 1-7/8-inch strips in the following order: medium green, medium brown, medium green making sure the strips are staggered to the right.

2. Repeat as above but stagger the strips to the left.

3. Cut the strips 2-1/2 inches apart using a 45-degree angle, making six pieces in each direction.

4. Sew the pieces together to form a long strip with six chevron units.

5. Place a ruler just over 1/4 inch along the outer edges of the brown chevrons and draw a line. This will be your cutting line.

6. Cut along both lines.

7. Make four strip sets.

8. Sew a dark brown strip to each long edge, matching and pinning the ends and the center first, before sewing.

9. Make four units.

Quilt Assembly

1. Lay out the center nine blocks as follows: Top row: Block 1, Block 2, Block 1. Middle row: Block 2, Stencil design, Block 2. Bottom row: Block 1, Block 2, Block 1.

2. Sew the together in rows of three and then join the rows to form the center nine patch.

3. Sew a chevron strip set either side of the center nine patch.

4. Sew Block 4 to each end of the remaining chevron strip sets.

5. Attach one to the top and one to the bottom of the quilt.

To create the zigzag border, piece long strips then cut into bias sections. Reassemble in a chevron design.

Quilting & Finishing

Backing

1. Cut and join the backing fabric to fit the quilt, overlapping by two inches all the way round. Press any seams open.

2. Cut the batting/wadding to the same size.

Quilt as desired. The guest quilted along the seams to stabilize the blocks then did minimal decorative quilting.

Quilting

1. Make the quilt sandwich of top, batting and backing and secure with safety pins, quilt tacks or basting spray if machine quilting, or by tacking if sewing by hand.

2. Quilt as desired. I quilted in the ditch along most of the seams to stabilize the blocks and did minimal decorative quilting, as I felt the design spoke for itself.

Binding

1. Measure the perimeter of the quilt and with the cut strips 2-1/2 inches wide in medium brown fabric. Join them in a continuous strip.

2. Fold in half along the length and iron flat.

3. Attach the binding, mitring the corners and hem at the back.