Skopelos Fabric Showcase Quilt

Welcome to my stop on the tour to showcase Katarina Rocella‘s new fabric collection, Skopelos, for Art Gallery Fabrics. It was quite by accident that I ended up taking part in two of these hops back to back, and it has made for quite a whirlwind sewing month of April! (Visit my post on my quilt made for Pat Bravo, with her new collection, Etno).

For my Skopelos quilt, I made a throw size using blocks from my Jumping Jacks pattern. Since I made the original Jumping Jacks quilt, I have wanted to do another with the blocks oriented in a different way, so this was  good chance. I like how the basic block really shows off the pretty fabric prints.

Katarina wrote that she was inspired to create these prints based on her favorite Greek island of Skopelos, and they are so fresh and pretty…just like you would imagine the scenery of a Mediterranean island. It is amazing when you consider that the color palette is very limited (pinks, blues (aqua and navy), gray and cream), that there is such a great variety  of prints in the collection. I usually struggle to make a quilt with fabrics from a single designer, let alone a single collection, but these are so well rounded, you don’t really need anything more.

This quilt is a departure for me in style…I have never done a design using “negative space” as I have here with the cream and the turquoise fabrics (both Art Gallery Fabrics basics). I do love how it turned out, but for someone like me with limited (or zero) free-motion quilting skills, that space proved challenging when I went to quilt it. My M.O. is straight line quilting, using the seams and patchwork as my guide. Let’s just say those open spaces are hard to “eye-ball” straight lines and there was some Un-Quilting happening before I got it to my satisfaction. I used Hobbs Heirloom batting and Aurifil thread in gray, turquoise and cream.

The large areas of color did make for a fun experiment with the binding.. as you can see in the middle photo above, I did my best to fussy piece the binding to match. I have never done that before, but those corners weren’t as hard to pull off as I expected, and, while it isn’t perfect, I’m really glad I did it that way.

Be sure and visit the other sewists on the tour (click here for schedule)…lots of fun projects to inspire you. There is also an opportunity to enter to win some of this beautiful fabric!

Sharon

Linking up with Amanda Jean for Finish it Friday