New quilt design from Kathie Beltz with William's Garden Collection

I’m having fun with a surprise project. Yay! A New Quilt Design from Kathie Beltz with William’s Garden Collection!

Island Batik just released Deb Tucker’s new Signature Collection, “William’s Garden” by Kathy Engle. Aren’t these batiks yummy?

I was gifted with these three from the collection, a turquoise, a pink, and a dark purple.

Hmmmm . . . what kind of fun can I have with these beauties? I’ll stick to the basics, and use one of my favorite blocks, the Shaded 4-Patch. With a light fabric, a medium, and a dark, I can come up with all kinds of designs using this traditional block. And yet, the final design doesn’t have to be traditional.

I decided to use the dark purple for the background, and the pink and turquoise will be the triangles and squares in the design. For the Shaded 4-Patch block, I cut wide strips, narrow strips, and rectangles. Then sew wide strips to narrow strips.

I position the strip sets right sides together, but opposite colors. I don’t have to worry about nesting seams, because they don’t line up anyway. Then I subcut sections which are the same width as the narrow strip, creating pairs. I keep cutting until I have 16 pairs.

Keeping the pairs together, I sew along one long side. Before I press, I clip the seam in the center, just barely breaking the seam. Then I can press the seams in opposite directions, away from the pink squares.

Now I can draw sewing lines on the back, and easily see where the seams cross. Placing the ruler on a 45 degree angle, I draw a line at the corner of the pink square, right where the seams cross. Then do the same at the corner of the other pink square. Now I have two parallel lines. Pairing this unit with a turquoise rectangle, I sew on the lines, then cut 1/4″ away from each seam. I could also just cut down the center of the two seams, leaving a larger seam allowance.

I press the seam toward the turquoise triangle to complete the Shaded 4-Patch blocks. Using my trusty Tucker Trimmer 1, I’ll trim these blocks to make them square and perfect. Lining up one diagonal line on the TT1 with the diagonal seam, and the opposite diagonal line with the corner of the pink square, I trim two sides, then the other two sides.

To make my design a little more interesting, I make another set of Shaded 4-Patch blocks, but I’ll switch the fabrics to get turquoise squares and pink triangles in the final blocks.