Christine Vinh of StitchesnQuilts created a beautiful modern quilt for display at Artistic Artifacts that features the Squared Elements line from Art Gallery fabrics — a quick and easy quilt to put together!
Chris used methods similar to a Jelly Roll Race quilt (there are many Jelly Roll Race tutorials online), but instead of using a prepackaged Jelly Roll of strips, she rotary cut her strips, and also incorporated solid white into her design.
Chris began by choosing 13 colors of Squared Elements: Blueberry, Cyan, Fuchsia, Honeycomb, Lime, Mandarin, Navy, Noir, Pomegranate, Shadow, Turquoise, Wasabi and Watermelon.
Her first step was to cut the Squared Elements fabrics into 2.5 inch wide strips. She then cut those strips into different (and random) lengths. A solid white cotton fabric was cut into strips that were 2.5 inches wide (the same as the colored fabrics), but a consistent length, 5.5 inches.
To begin the quilt construction, Chris stitched together the randomly cut longer color strips on the short 2.5 inch end, alternating each color with the white 2.5 inch x 5.5 inch strip.
Chris notes that the length of the sewn strips you create will depend on what size quilt you desired. “I made mine approximately the size of my design wall,” she said, “but a bit longer to allow for some minor adjustment in vertical strip placement.”
She continued randomly stitching the colored strips to the white strips, placing them on her design wall when complete. Once you have enough strips completed to create the width of the quilt, fine-tune your strip placement if desired. Once your strip order is determined, square up the ends of your strips if you have staggered the vertical placement of the strip to achieve a more pleasing order. Stitch all strips together on the long sides to complete the quilt top.
One aspect of the Jelly Roll Race quilts is that the strip placement is NOT planned and you’re encouraged not to fuss over it. Chris challenged herself to work in the same random way. If two like-colored strips end up next to one another, that’s okay!
Chris is known for creating quilts that are just as pretty on the reverse by piecing her backings, and this quilt is no exception — see above. She used leftover Squared Elements fabrics and pieced them with Moonstone Pure Elements fabric, also from Art Gallery.
The finishing touch was machine quilting by Mandi Singer-Persell, a fellow member of the Arlington chapter of Quilter’s Unlimited. Mandi’s business SewcialStitch is passionate about fabric and quilting, and offers professional longarm services to help you finish your quilting projects. A detailed view of the gray solid back of the quilt so you can appreciate Mandi’s quilting design:
Chris is also working on another quilt using the Squared Elements, a Log Cabin block variation set on point, seen below. We hope these modern style strip pieced quilts have inspired you!
