Beach Quilts with Kaffe Fassett Collective

Mmm…One of the first “designer” fabrics that I fell in love with was a collection by Kaffe Fassett Collective. I know I am not alone here. Why then did it take so many years for me to use these fabrics in a quilt?

My early quilts were block based and usually based around an ivory or cream background fabric as is the style of the quilts that I first saw and liked enough to become a quilter.

Part of the quilter’s challenge is to build a ‘stash’ of fabrics (or so I was led to believe haha!) and this process involved buying up favourite fabric bundles without actually any idea of what project or quilt pattern they might be used for (no idea at all). In line with these rules for stash building, I bought a layer cake of Kaffe Fassett Collective Spring Dark (Blues) that are stunning prints and colours all in dark shades. I had tried to use this layer cake quite a few times since but hadn’t had good results. I only had 30 x 10” squares left over from these various experiments and the finished quilt still measures 60” Wide x 72” Long.

I finally realised, that the background choices I had been making were the problem, not the prints. The creams and ivory were too warm, and a navy I tried was too dark and didn’t give the contrast that was needed to really highlight the printed floral images. The solution: use a clean white background.

This is the result! I chose a very simple HST quilt, set into chevron blocks, to make a quick quilt to practice my Longarm Quilting but I love how this quilt turned out. The white background is perfect for a beach quilt that will see good use, get wet, washed, filled with sand and hopefully worn out until it becomes a bunch of loose threads! I have family who live near the beach who can make the most of this fresh and happy quilt.

I’ll add some photos of the finished quilt once it is done and although it is already loaded on the Longarm machine I have not made a final decision on the quilting design. Overall, I am happy with the simplicity and effect that results from simple traditional HST blocks. It can be refreshing to work on something that is simple but effective. It allows time to think about the future of the quilt you are making and enjoy the process too. As an added advantage, I also created a new space in my quilt fabric stash that I will now have to fill again! Yay!

Have a great day, try something you haven’t done before, and most of all — happy quilting!