Pie In The Sky Quilt
My newest quilt pattern, Pie in the Sky, is now published in Make Modern magazine's issue 58.
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Pie in the Sky quilt pattern
Pie in the Sky is a fun, modern quilt pattern that looks more difficult to make than it is. I uses curved piecing for the blocks, and comes together surprisingly quickly.
This would be a perfect quilt for a modern home, not to mention add a bit of retro arcade flair for a Pac-Man lover ;-)
Pie in the Sky is one of those accidental quilt patterns that happen every so often. I had doodled in EQ8, trying out the curves option for drawing to see how it worked. I ended up with a block that had small and large curves, so I started putting a few blocks together to see what I could do with it, and eventually Pie in the Sky appeared on my screen waiting for the perfect moment to be published.
Pie in the Sky is a generous throw size at 60" x 80", and suitable for adventurous beginners and intermediate quilters.
Fabric choices
This quilt uses the Color Club fabric collection by Heather Valentine (of The Sewing Loft) for Windham Fabrics. I was lucky enough that Heather released her new collection around the same time that I was making this quilt, so I was able to get some sample yardage. Color Club worked really well for this because I had wanted to have the center "pies" in a darker rainbow and the blocks around the outside in a lighter shade, and this collection had enough different fabrics that I could pull this off.
Originally I had started out with colours that were quite different from the rainbow I ended up making. My first few doodles used ochre, teal, navy, and pink to try out various options. There are lots of fun colour variations one could use with this quilt, and I might collect some of them in another blog post for your inspiration.
Piecing Curves
Are you intimidated by curves? I know I was, despite designing a quilt that was nothing but curved seams. I always had a little bit of trouble lining up the fabrics properly so that the blocks would end up the right size, and square up properly, so I tended to stay away from curved piecing whenever possible.
Before starting this quilt, I actually made a few blocks using various methods to piece the curves, just to see which one would work the best for this quilt.
I found that using Elmer's white glue, along with a precision tip from Pen+Paper Patterns, to baste the curves before sewing them gave me the best results.
The runner-up was pinning, with lots and lots of pins. Not just one in the center and a couple at the mid-points, but I had at least one pin per inch.
However, your mileage may vary and your favourite method might be different. If you're new-ish to piecing curves, I recommend using some scrap fabric to try out a few different methods like I did, and then go with the one you like best and that gives you the best result.
Quilting Design
I knew I was going to have this quilt longarmed because of its size, and the fact that it was going to be in a magazine and my usual cross hatch or wavy line quilting wasn't going to cut it.
Heather of Red Willow Quilts had this Deco Arch pantograph open on her computer when I brought the quilt to her studio, and I pretty much fell in love with the design then and there.
Pie in the Sky has a lot of negative space that would be perfect for some gorgeous custom quilting, but since we were choosing a pantograph, it had to be an interesting one that would show off well in between all the "pies".
Rainbow Binding
A fun rainbow quilt like Pie in the Sky needs a rainbow binding, of course. I chose to use the darker fabrics from the center of the quilt for the binding, and had them switch colour whenever the blocks switched out. I love how it turned out and how it just adds the perfect finishing touch to this rainbow quilt.
Instructions for the rainbow binding are included with the pattern in Make Modern, but if you'd like to try it out for a different quilt, I explained my method in this blog post as well.
Pie in the Sky is now available in issue 58 of Make Modern magazine. You can purchase the issue individually, or opt for a subscription and get over 100 pages of gorgeous quilty content every two months. I highly recommend the second option ;-)