Hands up who else gifted handmade this Christmas?? This Christmas saw 3 quilts find new homes, including the quilt that inspired the Origami quilt pattern in the first place – the Japanese Origami quilt.
This quilt (and the resulting quilt pattern) was inspired by the Japanese fabrics that my mother-in-law purchased in Japan earlier this year. I was stuck on how to make the most of the prints, when my husband mentioned that they look a bit like origami paper, and maybe I could do something like that to show off the prints at their best… and inspiration struck!
Origami paper usually has two sides with a different colour or print on each side, and a little folded corner is used on packaging to show what is on the reverse side. This is very easily translated to a quilt block with a handy dandy half-square triangle! So I did a bit of shopping to get some prints to complement the Japanese fabrics, and started cutting and playing around.
The first iteration included a few brighter blocks from the fabrics I added in, and after sitting on the design wall for a few weeks (while I got the AGF Selva and Kate Spain Voyage versions completed first), I decided the orange and blue blocks needed to come out; they were just too bright and attention-stealing.
The Origami pattern includes instructions for making the most of layer cakes or fat quarters for the quilt blocks, but also includes the instructions for making a scrappier version. My mum’s quilt is a hybrid of it all, with a mixture of yardage and scraps used to complete the blocks. The pattern also includes an optional paper crane block (the Tsuru quilt block upsized to match) to add in, which I did add in one, and I love how it helps tell the tale of origami paper!
With all the craziness of getting by book blog hop happening and wrapping up for the year, I only got the quilt to the quilter in early December. Thankfully, she got her skates on with the perfect digital design of leaves and fans. It’s the first time I’ve had such a pictorial quilting design done, and this was certainly the quilt for it! The backing is the classic newsprint wideback by Carrie Bloomston, which looks good on practically every quilt, and includes some beautiful messaging.
I was then quite literally binding this quilt as my parents-in-law were flying to Melbourne to spend Christmas with us, haha! I found the perfect Sevenberry indigo fabric at Nuno Nuno. I’m always a fan of a darker binding fabric to “frame” the quilt, but this quilt really needed it to help balance out the black print. Being the Large Bed size (87″ x 87″ – a bit larger than a queen-size doona), I’m so grateful for machine binding to get it all done within a couple of hours!
I love how my husband’s idea helped spark a new pattern idea but also helped bring his mother’s quilt to life. I’m big on sentimentality in quilting, and this is such a great example of exactly that! I even roped in dad to help my husband hold the quilt up to take a photo, but being such a big quilt, I had to be quick…
Eh, not too bad, ha! Talking of size, they had brought a vacuum-bag with them to seal it up and make it as small as possible to take home on the plane. Clever thinking!
Get the Origami PDF pattern here or paper pattern here
Want more Origami quilt inspiration?
- Origami pattern testers’ quilts
- Origami in AGF Selva (fat quarters)
- Origami in Voyage by Kate Spain (layer cake)
Carole @ From My Carolina Home says
That is a fun design, and your inclusion of your crane block is inspired! Lovely!!
Alyce says
Thank you!
Margaret Burnett says
Thank you for sharing your experience in learning to apply basic free-motion quilting motifs fearlessly to your quilts,