House of Blues Free Pattern

House of Blues

42” x 42”

Designed by Heidi Pridemore

Indigo is one of my favorite colors. It is bold yet dark and mysterious. Indigo can play the part of the background or take front and center in a project. For this month’s project I designed House of Blues and I wanted to make the dark Indigo color the star of the show.  I used my GO Mix and Match 6” Qube set to make this project quick and easy. The fabric collection for this quilt is Indigo Dreams from Timeless Treasures. The mix of soft blues and strong indigo blues was perfect. I used the indigo pieces in the main areas and the softer colors as the backgrounds. The geometric shapes reminded me of architecture so I decided to call this quilt “House of Blues”. For the design, I decided to focus on only the GO! Mix and Match 6” cube for the blocks. The quilt looks complex but the die cut shapes made it a breeze to assemble.

For the fabrics, I took the Indigo Dreams collection and divided it up into lights, mediums and darks. I envisioned the quilt design, only thinking about the values of each color. The Whimsical Workshop value tool is very helpful for this step. When you look through a value tool at a group of fabrics the tint of the plastic takes the colors out and leaves you with just the values of the fabrics. You can compare one piece next to another to check their value.

The pattern for this month’s project is free from The Whimsical Workshop. You can download the free pattern at www.TheWhimsicalWorkshop.com along with our past free patterns. We have also included traditional cutting instructions for this project in the pattern too.

The quilt is made up of four large blocks made from assortment of units. At the heart of each unit is a Square in a Square Block. I kept the centers for each the same light fabric and only changed the outer triangles to four different dark fabrics to keep things simple. The fabric used for the outer triangles becomes the dominant diamond patterns in each quadrant of the block.

Next is to make each quadrant of the block. Here is the layout of one for you to see. Please refer to our free pattern for the actual instructions and illustrations for assembly. Notice I used the medium value fabrics for the background. You make the backgrounds from one or two fabrics or make it scrappy as long as you use fabrics of similar value for each section.

Once you have each quadrant of the block completed it is time to lay out the block. Each quadrant twists around the center square. I explain how to sew this together in detail in the pattern but also wanted to share step by step photos for this here. At first glance it may seem indimadating but if you take it one step at a time it really is quite easy.

Make sure to lay out all four blocks the same way so when you sew the blocks together the pattern will continue across the quilt top and the dark fabrics match.

First we will start with the lower right quarter unit and the center square. Align the square with the upper left corner of the quarter unit. Starting at the top of the square, sew the square to the quarter unit, STOPPING halfway down. Press towards the quarter unit. If you do this step correctly the rest of the block just pops together.

Next align the upper right quarter unit to the top of the sewn pieces. Sew in place and press towards the quarter unit.

Now align the upper left quarter unit to the left side of the sewn pieces. Sew in place and press towards the quarter unit.

Next align the lower left unit to the bottom of the upper left quarter unit/center square of the sewn pieces. Sew in place and press towards the quarter unit.

Finally finish sewing the very first seam to complete the block. Easy Peasy!

For the borders, I wanted to carry the dark blue to the edge of the design so I designed a checkerboard border to showcase the contrast in the fabrics using only lights and darks. Then I framed the checkerboard border with two different medium color borders. You will see in the photo below I did use four fabrics for my backgrounds since I was working with smaller pieces of fabrics and honestly did not have enough to do just two different backgrounds. I wanted to show how it looks with two backgrounds (image above and on pattern) and four backgrounds.

This pattern has so many ways to change it up. Change the colors, flip-flop the values placements, make it scrappy or just use black and whites. I hope you have fun playing with these variations. As always please send along your projects to us at info@thewhimsicalworkshop.com and we can add you to our bragging rights page on our website.

Make sure to visit my blog each month where I will share with you some tips and tricks on cutting and assembling of the project of the month along with posting the free pattern on our website The Whimsical Workshop You can also see our pattern and post at www.accuquilt.com

Until next time…..

Heidi