Split 4 Patch in Romance Garden Fabrics

Welcome to my stop for the Romance Garden blog hop, hosted by Sherry Shish of Powered By Quilting! Romance Garden is Sherry's signature fabric line with Island Batik. It has butterflies and dragonflies and gorgeous colours, oh my!

I decided to make a Split 4 Patch baby quilt, using the free tutorial I wrote last year. It's almost as simple as making a regular 4 patch block, but the angles make it look so much more interesting. As a bonus, the tutorial uses 10" squares, so it's perfect if you're looking for a project for a layer cake.

Here's the full baby quilt top. These colours were such a joy to work with when our outside world is still snow, snow, and more snow.

I think this pink with butterflies is my favourite fabric in the line.

Those same butterflies look good in purple, too, though.

And the dragonflies are fun!

I made a slight mistake when cutting for the first inset strip in the first set of blocks, lining up the ruler 2 1/2" from the corner on one side instead of 3 1/2". Rather than recut the squares for those blocks, I cut a second set the same way (the blocks are made in groups of 4), and the other two sets are cut at the 3 1/2" line. Then when I made the cut for the second inset strip, I cut them all at the 3 1/2" line as the tutorial says. The difference is pretty subtle, but you can see it if you look at the shape of the bottom right fabric of these two blocks.

I had three of the four rows assembled when I went to my friend Michelle's house to sew on Monday evening. When I packed everything up to go, I grabbed the strips for the sashing between rows off my cutting table, or at least I thought I did. When it came time to sew the rows together to finish the top, I discovered I had actually grabbed the pieces leftover after cutting the shorter sashing strips. There was enough length there, it would just mean having a seam in each of the long sashing strips. I debated for a moment (piece the strips and go home with a finished top, or no seam in the sashing, but not have a finished top that night) and decided to piece the strips. It's a baby quilt, after all, and will never be entered into a show where it might matter. In the end, the seams are barely noticeable.

I guess the moral of this story (quilt) is that sometimes it works to just roll with the mistakes!

I'm thinking I'll quilt either a flower meander (like on this Formal Garden quilt) or a curvy flower (like on my Tilted Flowers quilt), using Aurifil 1231. While I wouldn't normally call myself a fan of lime-y greens, I do love this one they call Spring Green, and it fits these fabrics perfectly.

Now the only question is, will this baby quilt be quilted before this year's WIPS-B-GONE challenge starts in October? 😅 I guess we'll have to wait and see!

Lots of quilty friends are sharing projects made with Romance Garden over the next couple of weeks. Here's the full schedule so you can hop around and see them all.

March 1: Sherry Shish at Powered By Quilting

March 1: Leanne Parsons at Devoted Quilter (you are here!)

March 2: Kate Starcher at Katie Mae Quilts

March 3: Jen Strauser at Dizzy Quilter

March 4: Elizabeth DeCroos at Epida Studio

March 5: Sally Willams and Sally Jewell at Sallys' Sewing Circle

March 6: Brianna Roberts at Sew Cute and Quirky

March 7: Jennifer Fulton at Inquiring Quilter

March 8: Anja Clyke at Anja Quilts

March 9: Tammy Silvers at Tamarinis

March 10: Kathryn LeBlanc at Dragonfly's Quilting Design Studio

March 11: Sarah Vanderburgh at Sew Joy Creations

March 12: Sherry Shish at Powered By Quilting