Summer Harvest Quilt | Lori Miller Designs

My next pattern is ready for Sale! Summer Harvest is a super easy Throw Quilt made from 9 1/2″ quilt blocks. It will be the perfect project for a beginning quilter this summer.

It uses precut 10 inch squares so you can break open that fabulous pile of fabric you have been waiting to use. It lends itself to any season, but these bright Malka Dubrowski prints really pop with the colors of the farmer’s market in summer.

This quilts was originally featured on the cover of Quick to Stitch Precuts Magazine in 2015, but now it is available as a PDF download.

The pattern is super easy and the precut 10 inch blocks and assembly instructions let you easily strip piece the blocks in a hurry.

You create these leaf style blocks and sew them together in rows and columns.

Here is the quilt top all pieces and ready for pin basting.

This was my original Electric Quilt 7 design, but I decided to add some narrow sashing between the columns to set off the bright fabrics.

I even used the scraps cut from the corners to piece the backing for this quilt. A great way to use the leftovers.

I also quilted this throw with my Bernina 630 and some free motion quilting. I used a cute leave motif for each block.

I hope you have as much fun making this quilt as I did!

You can purchase my Summer Harvest Pattern as a PDF download by going to the My Patterns tab and following the link to My Etsy Shop!

Thanks for letting me share! Tag me on Instagram at lorimillerdesigns, I would love to see your version!

From Quick to Stitch Precuts Magazine Spring/Summer 2015

I am so pleased to announce that my work has been published in a new magazine, Quick to Stitch Precuts 2015. This magazine is from the folks that produce the fun and modern Fresh Quilts Magazine. I had worked with the editors, Deb Gore Orhn and Riane Menardi, on a small startup crafting website a few years ago. When I had the opportunity to submit a few ideas for their new Precuts concept magazine, I jumped at the chance. Fortunately, they accepted two of my projects, my Summer Harvest Quilt and some cute Pinwheel Pincushions. I documented my adventure and thought you might like to see how I put together the projects. I am first going to share the making of my quilt.

Yes, I was kind of delighted to be on the cover.

For the first project, I decided to use 10 inch squares which are also called a layer cake. I had just gotten myself Electric Quilt 7 software and I was working my way through learning how to use it. Here is what the initial design concept looked like. I was very new to the software, so I did not know how to add the thin sashing that I eventually added between the rows of leaves.

I knew I wanted a bold, modern print and I had seen some fabric designed by Malka Dubrawski called Outside in. So I grabbed a layer cake package of it to work with. I started out by string piecing the corners in an natural linen.

Since the corners were pretty big. I did double stitching so I would have some instant left over half square triangles.

I started laying out the pieces in rows. At first, I mixed all the colors and squares up but the chaos was too much for me. Then I started to arrange in groups of color and prints and it came to life. i have a design floor instead of a design wall. A design wall is on my to do list.

Here I have it all pieced and sewn together. There were two squares in the bundle that were about the same color as the linen I had used for the squares. So I just flipped that leaf pair and used some poppy red corners for it. See it on the right hand side? It kind of added a little spontaneity in the quilt.

Here I am trying to pin the quilt on the floor. It is too hard to move that rug, so I just vacuum really well and then I use painters tape and tape the quilt back right to the carpet. There is a lot of smoothing and adjusting and then I pin from the center out.

This quilt is a large throw size, so I decided to quilt it myself. I got out my trusty BSR Bernina foot and I marked a few of the leaves but after two or three, I just went for it free hand. On the corners, I just zig zagged bag and forth. All of the leaves had the same quilt design except for the solid fabrics. In each of those, I varied the design for interest.

The middle sashing just got meandering rows of sort of straight lines. The effect was still very nice. I think I am going to do that on a whole quilt next time.

From Quick to Stitch Precuts Magazine Spring/Summer 2015

Here is the full finished quilt. You can see I used the poppy red print for the binding with a little bit of an extra print here and there.

What did I do with all of those extra half square triangles? I used them and the leftover linen and fabrics to create a fun back for the quilt. You can really see the quilting of the leaves on the linen.