New Leaf…Amateur Style (Part 1)

Earlier this week we shared the Wowie Zowie quilt my stepmother created from the New Leaf Collection by designer Daisy Janie.  Marcia is incredibly talented and has YEARS of experience (I’m gonna guess decades, but that just makes us all sound so old, so years it is!).  She has techniques, ideas and an eye for putting prints together that ONLY come with patience, practice and time.

I, however, do not possess any of those qualities when it comes to quilting.  So, I start my quilting journey with a more realistic approach to the craft. With that said,  I thought it would be fun to take a two-pronged approach to the New Leaf collection and show you all what you can do if you’re just starting out like me.   We can dream of achieving a bit of amazing while building skill sets.

Here’s a peak at my New Leaf quilt, which requires a much narrower set of skills.   It doesn’t pack the punch of Wowie Zowie, but it will have to do until I figure it all out!

Here’s what I did:

MATERIALS (for quilt top):
1/4 yard each of eight prints

7/8 yard of solid white

CUT:

15 Blocks – two of each print in the New Leaf collection – 11.5″ x 6.5″  (you’ll have one block leftover–you can see I used just one yellow block)

20 Small Bricks – Solid White –  2.5″ x 6.5″

6 Long Bricks – Solid White – 2.5″ x Length of Fabric

The finished size of the top will be approximately 41″ x 42″.

For inspiration on how to create my own pattern, I found this.

The measurements were manipulated quite a bit, but it was helpful to have a starting point rather than working completely from scratch.  My other tip: I used graph paper.  The measurements were much simpler to configure when working with the graph paper because everything was to scale.

Any way, I thought the white really allowed these bright, complex prints to stand out and speak for themselves.

Will let you know when it’s done!

Linking my quilt in the works up today with WIP Wednesday over at Freshly Pieced.