The Joyful Quilt

I feel this quilt deserves its own post. At a whopping 80″ x 100″, it is definitely the largest quilt I have made to date and I love it! The above photo gives you an idea of its immensity. Photographed in my 8 ft-ceilinged home, it JUST fit on my bedroom wall, pinned to the crown moulding.

In fact, the size made my Quilt Market booth planning a bit easier in that it was a whole wall in itself. No extra decor necessary.

It was pretty straightforward to make in that it consists of half-square triangles and pentagrams (really easy to cut with minimal fabric waste) and pretty speedy too due to the oversized pieces (each square measures 10″ square), so no fiddly piecing.

That extra large scale was definitely intentional. I really wanted to show off the larger scale prints in the collection, especially the floral, Grandiflora, peeking out in the picture below with the bee.

One of my favourite features of the quilt is that there is so much going on, without being overwhelming. You get a different feeling depending on which section you are looking at, whether that be calm or dramatic.

I was definitely intimidated by the size when it came to quilting, so I opted for my usual simple straight lines, spaced a generous 1″ apart, which ended up being a quick and satisfying choice.

The quilt uses just about every print in the JOY collection. I also included 1 solid, Starfruit from Michael Miller’s Cotton Couture range.

And you can catch a few glimpses of the backing, a charcoal & white small-scale chevron print from one of my very first collections with Michael Miller, Les Monsieurs. The graphic nature of this print is the perfect counterbalance to all that free-flowing colourful nature on the front and it also echoes the quilt pattern’s peaks and valleys.

Most of the inspiration for the quilt came from this one I made a number of years ago from Helen’s Garden. It has always been a favourite of mine which I wanted to try agin, but with far less cutting and piecing.

If you’d like to make a similar quilt of your own, I have written up the instructions as a free download. Enjoy!