The Liberty Mini QAL begins today! This month, I am co-hosting this quilt along with Ava & Neve, and we’re sewing up the Cinque Terre mini quilt pattern. Today, I want to have a little chat about things to consider when choosing prints for your quilts, and also the background and binding fabrics.
Choosing Cinque Terre Prints
Once you’ve grabbed your pattern (paper here or the PDF here), it’s time to start thinking about what Liberty fabrics you want to use. In my QAL announcement post, I shared a few palette ideas to get you started thinking about what you might like to choose for your quilt.
The easier choice of action is to go for the smaller-scale prints. The quilt blocks are small, only 8″ finished, so that’s not a lot of space to showcase the larger prints. However, if there’s enough interest in a larger-scale print to work within a smaller cut, it can still work. Take for example the Small Susanna B print in the centre below. That was the inspiration for the fabric pull, and when it’s all cut up, the splashes of colour work as it coordinates with the prints around it.
If this kind of palette inspires you, I’ve found some of the same or very similar options at Ava & Neve if you’d love to take advantage of the DIY Bundle kit + Cinque Terre paper pattern. For this kit, you add it to your cart, and then choose 10 prints and leave their names in the comments at checkout. Oh yes, 10 fat sixteenths! Just like the Liberty Society monthly bundle club, but as you only need 9 for Cinque Terre, you have one print spare – for something fun and special, or if you just can’t decide between two for your quilt!
Milky Way A | Claire & Emily C | Wiltshire WB
Summer Blooms X | Small Susanna B | Prosperity B
Land Of Dreams A | Edenham 19A | Michelle A
If you’re thinking more of an ombre look washing across your quilt, then you’ll be aiming for around 5 different saturation levels of a colour. Lightest in the top left, then light, then medium across the middle diagonal, dark, and darkest. Using the black and white filter on your smartphone is a great way to check how the saturation levels of your fabrics compare.
You’ll notice that the 3 darkest fabrics look pretty close to each other when in black and white, but full colour, they look more different due to the colours used – the dark ones have bits of blue and/or lighter teal, and the darkest has almost black.
I’ve found some similar and/or same prints as what I showed above from Ava & Neve if you’re inspired by this teal ombre palette. Psst – the Marine print also comes in a blue colourway, which I ADORE.
Corallium A | Yoshie D | La Daisy C
Summer Blooms X | Marine A | Graceful Teal
Gingham Garden C | Capel D | Full Bloom C
Once I started browsing, I just couldn’t stop thinking of ideas! Here’s another fun one based on the central print for inspiration – it has me dreaming of ice cream with sprinkles by the beach.
Mini Pavilion C | Prosperity A | Cactus Jungle B
Betsy W | Edenham 19B | Floral Waltz B
Silver Lining B | Reef C | Scribble C
And while you’re browsing Ava & Neve for what fabrics to buy, check out their range of chambrays for your background fabric – they match beautifully in weight and touch to the Liberty lawn! But which one to choose?!
Choosing Background And Binding
What background fabric you choose will have an impact on how your fabrics read – something dark and moody really makes the colours pop and creates a bold look.
Choosing a lighter colour like white creates a whole other look – more fresh and spring-like! Both versions use the exact same colours in EQ8 and the same Liberty print in the centre, but doesn’t it look so different?!
My first Cinque Terre quilt used white for the background and binding, and used Kayako C for the inspiration print. It created a fresh and bright quilt!
But by using EQ8, I could quickly whip up what it would look like with a dark charcoal grey… a very different effect.
The pattern for Cinque Terre lists the background and binding fabric requirements separately, but if you are using one fabric for the background, I encourage you to use it for the binding too! It really allows the prints to shine.
Another option that I’ve seen floating around already is to use a variety of background fabrics, like Michele is doing with a rainbow of Capel fabric! She’s pulled matching solids, and I’m excited to see where this Cinque Terre quilt is headed.
So what are you choosing? Be sure to share them on Instagram with us by using #LibertyMiniQAL and #blossomheartquilts so that we can see what you’re up to! If you also tag us – @blossomheartquilts and @ava_and_neve – that makes it even easier for us to follow along. Please note – if your Instagram profile is private, we will not be able to see any of your posts through the hashtag or by you tagging us.
If you need to get the pattern, you can do so here:
Cinque Terre PDF pattern from my store
Cinque Terre paper pattern or DIY a Cinque Terre kit from Ava & Neve
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