Block Adventures - in Make Modern issue 40

Do you remember the "Choose your own Adventure" books we read as kids? This quilt pattern is a fun take on those books, with large mix and match blocks to let you choose your own design.

The Block Adventures pattern is available in issue 40 of Make Modern magazine.

This pattern was a collaboration with my good friend Katy Devlin. I don't quite remember how we came up with the idea of doing a pattern together, but we ended up sitting at Starbucks together for hours trying out block configurations and colour options, and just generally having fun playing around with quilt patterns. 

Mix and match blocks

And it's a fun quilt to make, too. Block Adventures consists of three block patterns that are meant to be combined in sets of two, to make up three different but similar-looking quilt patterns. It would be perfect to make quilts for siblings, or bunk beds at a cottage etc. Similar enough to show a theme, but not exactly matching.

The blocks are simple, large and easy to piece. They come together fast using just HSTs and squares. The throw size uses just twelve blocks, six of each type, and the twin just 20. The fun comes in when you choose which final quilt pattern you like best, and pick the blocks accordingly.

Colour decisions

When picking colours, we played around with a lot of different colour schemes. Each one highlighted a different element of the overall design and made choosing the final colours for the samples quite difficult. 

In the end, we decided on the blue/yellow/orange/white colour scheme for the big quilt, and a complementary pink/blue/yellow one for the cushion. The pattern has guidance on which fabrics in each block are the same ones to achieve the looks we did, but you can easily add more colours by using different ones for each block and really make this an adventure.

If you would like to play around with your own colour schemes and a box of crayons, we've designed some colouring pages to help you with this.

Just enter your email below to have them sent directly to your inbox. (This also subscribes you to my newsletter for lots of other perks, but don't worry, you can unsubscribe at any time if you find it's not your cup of tea).

Quilting

We decided to keep the quilting on the big quilt in the background, so I opted for a simple, modern 2" crosshatch to let the patchwork shine.

For the pillow, Katy outlined the main feature of the block, the X, with a double row of quilting. Since the pillow is likely to be washed less often, the quilting can be less dense.

This quilt was a lot of fun to make, deciding which blocks to put together for the samples, and how to place the colours we chose. It's truly a fun adventure :)

You can get the pattern here as part of issue 40 of Make Modern Magazine.

My quilt inspector thinks I won't notice if he tries to claim this one for himself...

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