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Riley Blake Designs fabric quilt kits for the cricut maker Daisy Days fabric for a throw size quilt using the free quilt pattern Around we go baby quilt pattern. How to modify and make it bigger. super fast easy beginner friendly sewing quilting pdf pattern design space how to tutorial guide quilt along. cutting machine for all materials and fabrics rotary cutter applique

Riley Blake Quilt Kits and your Cricut Maker. Part 1 of 3

If you have followed me for awhile, you will probably know I actually started out sewing as a quilter. I started my first quilt when I was pregnant with my oldest daughter Emma. That first quilt hooked me BIG TIME. I instantly became a hoarder of fabric, notions and patterns. A lot of us want to start quilting to make something special for someone. It can be a little daunting when choosing fabrics and patterns. When Cricut announced the Maker, they also announced their partnership with Riley Blake Fabrics, offering some super cute quilt patterns and fabric kits to take all the guess work out of your project so you can get to the fun part…. sewing!
This is part 1 of 3. You can view part 2 for the sewing tutorial HERE. 

This is a sponsored post on behalf of Cricut. However, all opinions are mine.

I am going to share with you a 3 part series on how to create a beautiful quilt from the very beginning to the very end! Today’s post is going to be more about the prep. Picking a pattern, choosing fabrics and fabric placement within the pattern and how I am making it bigger to accommodate the fabric I have in my quilt kit. We are also going to prep our fabric for the Cricut Maker today.

The Cricut Maker is one of my favorite quilting tools. You can accomplish so much with this machine and you know I am a HUGE fan of this product. I have created some really cool things with my Maker that I normally would have never done, just the thought of cutting some things will detract me from a project. The Maker takes all that away. I simply place my fabric on the fabric grip mat – press go and go on with other tasks while it cuts everything out for me. If you are into applique – this is a great product for you. For this Riley Blake / Cricut quilt project, I choose a very simple/ easy pattern to share with you. I wanted to start with this “Around we go” pattern so I can focus more on the basics of quilting. Pressing, seam direction, layout, fabric order, etc. The best part – The around we go pattern is FREE with access!

The first step in quilting is to choose your pattern. I always found it easier to choose a pattern THEN fabric. It’s easier to see what fabrics you will want to use if you already have a pattern in mind. You can browse the “Riley Blake Designs” category in Design Space to see all the amazing quilts they have, most of which work great with their quilt kits. I chose the “Around we go” quilt pattern, but check out all these great options you can choose to cut on your Maker. I really want to do the “Koko throw” and “Framed throw” next. Once you click the pattern you want, you can scroll down to the bottom of that page and click for the PDF directions, which you can download/ print on your computer.

I also choose the “Daisy Days” fabric quilt kit. Cricut offers a variety of quilt kits but this bright kit caught my eye. This quilt kit contains enough fabric for a throw size quilt. If you noticed, the pattern I choose is for a baby size quilt. I am going to share with you a few layouts on how to use the “baby” pattern and turn it into a throw size quilt since I have enough fabric in my kit to do that – yay! The “Around we go” pattern is a pretty simple/ traditional pattern. You can use nearly any size square you want, this one calls for 3.5″ squares (3″ finished) but you can really do any size you want as along as all the blocks are the same size. Cricut has a wide selection of blocks to choose from that are free if you have access. TIP: you will see on the quilt kit 4 quilt layouts. Those are merely a suggestion, their quilt patterns can be used on different quilt kits. The only thing you really have to look at is if it is a baby quilt kit – you can only choose from the baby quilt patterns. If it is a throw quilt kit – it will work on any pattern. As I mentioned earlier – I am doing a throw quilt kit – but a baby quilt pattern – so I am adjusting the size to accommodate the amount of fabric I have.

I didn’t really want a square quilt like the original pattern called for, and I wanted it bigger. Here is what I did to change it up a little. Added more rows to the length and some rows to the width. The inner black square outline is the original 39″x39″ quilt size. You can see now my quilt will finish at around 65″ x 71″ with the added blocks and with the added border. Borders are an easy way to make a quilt a little bigger and it really helps frame your piecing. This is my intended plan for the quilt, but we all know things change during the sewing process, so who knows, maybe I will skip the border or add an extra – you will have to follow along to find out.

Here I decided to recolor my quilt to the color order I am going to do. I decided to stick with 6 fabrics for blocks (2 pink, 2 green, 2 blue) and I am going to use the yellow floral from the kit for the border since that comes in a bigger piece. So if you are replicating the quilt I am making, this graph will make it easier to follow.

Once we have our pattern and fabric all picked out and modified to the size we want, lets go ahead and get our fabric prepped for cutting. The Daisy Day’s quilt kit features 10 fabrics in various sizes. Six of the prints are 1/3 yard cuts (12″ x 44″). This will give you 2 pieces at 12″x 22″ if you just cut it in half along the fold. I found this to be the easiest way. I love using my Cricut cutting mat (the back side is SO pretty!). The huge 12″x24″ ruler is perfect for prepping fabrics for your Fabric Grip mats. Oh, lets not forget that rotary cutter… good ol’ basic rotary cutter.

 

I know the directions call for you to cut them at different lengths depending on the sizes but since I am changing the size of the quilt, it changes the mat layout as well – don’t worry, I have a full diagram of what mat # to use and how many to cut for each fabric for this pattern. For now you can cut everything into 12″ x 22″ (roughly). I choose to stick with 6 prints like the original pattern. Because I am not introducing any other fabrics, my darker pink and darker green colors need more than the 1/3 yard, which is okay. The quilt kit also contains two 2/3 yard prints so this works out perfectly. If you were to use all the fabrics in the quilt kit, you could make this quilt even bigger! I like to stack about 3-4 sets of fabric and cut all at once – makes things go a lot faster!

Thanks for following along for week 1 of our super fun and easy quilt, be sure to stop in next week to see things come together! Want to follow along and share your progress with us? Join our fan group to share, inspire and learn! Don’t have a Cricut Maker? That’s okay – like I said earlier, any size square will work, charm packs would be a great option for you to start with.

Happy Sewing,

Katie Skoog

This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Cricut. The opinions and text are all mine.

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