I have admired two colored quilts for a long time but as much as I love their simplicity, I feel like some can be too simple. My solution to give my own two-color quilt a little more interest was to use multiple navy print fabrics.
A jelly roll was the perfect way to get strips already cut and in multiple prints in the same color family.
This jelly roll had 2 strips of 10 different prints.
To the multiply navy print fabric strips, I added a tone-on-tone white fabric. The next step was to start cutting. I cut an equal number of white strips to the number of navy print strips I had in my jelly roll. I sewed one tone-on-tone white strip to each navy print strip.
Once I had all the strips sewn, I started cutting them apart.
With my simple block pieces all cut, I started sewing the blocks together and turning the pieces to make a Rall Fence block.
I decided I wanted a 5 X 6 block layout. So, with one block completed and 29 more to go, I kept sewing.
After finishing 30 blocks, I laid them all out on my design floor. Some quilters have design walls, but my floor works pretty well for me. And someday, when I have huge sewing studio, I will create a design wall bur for now I will keep using my design floor, which also is known as my family room floor. After I found a pleasing layout, I sewed a set of two blocks together.
With my pairs sewn together, it was time to sew them into four-sews. I know that is not a real word, but it is the way I think of it, sew two-seys, then four-seys.
Sewing this method lets me sew several short seams, rather than many long seams.
Next, I added a tone-on-tone white border to make the blocks look like they were floating. And then, with the rest of the sewn strip pieces, I created 4-patches for a pieced border. I followed this with one more tone-on-tone white border. My quilt was complete and I have fallen in love with it. Who knew that a simple block and just two colors could have such a great look?
With the quilt top finished, it was not time to make it a real quilt by adding batting and backing and start the quilting. This quilt said, “I need to be stipple quilted,” and I agreed that was going to be a perfect finish but since I am slightly below average free motion stipple quilter, my Babylock Solaris was an easy and beautiful solution. The stippling is so evenly spaced and looks so wonderful.
I stippled all the white areas in the blocks and the first border.
The second border, I added a border quilt pattern built into the Solaris machine
You can also see the border quilt patter I put in the last border. I am always amazed by the way the Solaris makes border quilting so easy. It took me a few tries to really understand this machine’s awesomeness, but when I read the screen, did what it said to do, and didn’t try to be smarter than the machine, the results were perfect on every border.
Time for binding and I had used all the navy print strips I had, so I went to my private hoard of fabric and found a great coordinating navy print. I cut my strips, sewed them together and sewed my binding on. Here is my finished two-color quilt. I am so happy with the finished project.
