We have a seriously FUN quilt to share with you today! The 2020 Quilt is entirely made up of fabric from the Kaleidoscope collection. Kaleidoscope by Crayola™ is a Riley Blake Basic, designed to work with other Crayola™ and designer fabric collections.
I’m calling this the 2020 quilt because there was no plan or pattern involved in making this quilt, and the lack of a plan definitely made me nervous. It has a noisy, broken, chaotic look to it…..but there is also beauty in the bold colors, and if you look deeper, you can even make out some unintended design elements, such as incomplete stars, pinwheels, and more. The more you look for the beauty, the more you will find.
To make this quilt, I cut 6″ x WOF strips from all of the brightest colors in the Kaleidoscope collection. I then cut the strips down into 6″ squares.
After I had a colorful pile of squares, I started pairing them up. I paired them up in two ways.
1) I paired different shades of the same color together. So light pinks with dark pinks, lavender with purple, etc.
2) Next I paired neighboring colors together. So green/yellow, green/blue, purple/pink, purple/blue, red/orange, red/pink, etc.
This was all pretty random. If you feel more comfortable planning it out, sketch out your quilt beforehand. As for me, I simply took the plunge and hoped it would work out!
Once you have your squares paired up, begin making your half square triangles. If you need to brush up on how to make a half square triangle, you can click HERE for a great tutorial. I used the two at a time method.
Now that you have a nice big stack of half square triangle blocks (I needed 169 blocks for this quilt), it’s time to start laying out your design! I wasn’t sure how the design would look, so I started in one corner with the red tones and worked my way over toward the pinks and down toward the greens. Keep arranging the blocks until you are happy with them.
Tip #1: Don’t worry if once in awhile two triangles of the same color end up next to each other. You might be surprised at the fun element this adds to the design. Leave the colors and when it is all laid out, step back and decide if it works for youl
Tip #2: I don’t know why this helps, but it does. After you have your blocks laid out, pull out your phone and take a quick picture. For some reason, looking at the design in a photo gives me a more objective view of the quilt. I can more easily see the overall picture, and where I might want to make some changes. Sometimes it looks much better in the image than my critical eye sees in person, and I realize I can leave it alone!
After everything is laid out the way you want, start sewing your rows together.
Tip: Press seams for each row in opposite directions so they will nest when you sew the rows together.
That’s all there is to it! You can adjust the size or quantity of your blocks to make this quilt top as big or as small as you like.
I quilted this on my home machine using a light gray thread and a simple all over meandering design. Easy!
I used Granite Gray Kaleidoscope for the quilt back and binding.
The Kaleidoscope fabric works so well for this quilt because it emphasizes the colorful, prismatic look of this design.
Such an explosion of color! Pure eye candy!
Maybe we all need a 2020 Quilt to remind us that the best life plans can go awry, the world can feel topsy-turvy, and ideas about the future seem hazy at best…and yet there is beauty and depth and love to be found in the chaos if we are willing to look for it.
Kaleidoscope, by Crayola™, is available now at your favorite local and online quilt shops. Pick up yours today and share your makes with us on Instagram using #crayolafabric, #rileyblakedesigns, #iloverileyblake, and tag us @rileyblakedesigns.