How to Sew Inset Circles to Create a Planet Quilt Border
Welcome, welcome! It’s a Monday morning as I type this and I’m feeling excited about my upcoming week. Okay, I’m really a little overwhelmed with deadlines, but if I change the word “overwhelmed” into excited, it feels different, and even doable, am I right? Well, I am truly and genuinely excited to share this fun project with you today.
I LOVE outer space themed fabrics, so of course I knew I had to create something with the new Blast Off flannel fabric line designed by Shawn Wallace for Riley Blake Designs.
The collection includes a fabric panel in three different color options (Sky, White, and Charcoal), and it is sooo adorable! I opted to work with the white fabric panel, but it was seriously a tough choice and any color would have been great.
Did I mention this collection is in flannel? Riley Blake makes the softest, best quality flannel, and this is no exception. I wish you could reach through the screen and feel just how soft this flannel is.
Take a look at these adorable prints! Little kids flying through space, rockets, stripes, stars…so cute!
To make the planet border, I whipped up a stack of inset circles in various sizes. Inset circles are actually easy to make, and if you haven’t tried making them yet, I encourage you to give it a go. You won’t regret it.
I used the Creative Grids Circle Savvy Ruler found HERE and it took all of the guesswork out of it. Just follow the instructions and you’ll be whipping up circles in no time.
I also created a short video tutorial showing how I made the circles, and how I turned them into a border.
You can watch the video here, and please feel free to leave a comment with any questions you might have.
The inner border is made up of four 1 1/2” strips of the cute multi stripe. I didn’t mean for the stripes to match up with the stripes in the circle — not a perfect match, but kind of fun.
I used the same multi stripe for the binding. This is such a bright, happy quilt!
For the quilt back, I used the blue Main print, however, it wasn’t quite wide enough, so I brought in my leftover scraps to create a fun filler/extension. I love every chance to use up extra scraps.
I used cotton batting and quilted this on my home machine. I did a large scale all over meandering design with little stars thrown in for good measure. I always space my quilting out more when using flannel because it is so thick and fluffy. This prevents the fabric from bunching and pinching. The stars are easily stitched in as you are quilting the meandering design, and echo the space theme in the fabrics.
The finished quilt measures approximately 46” x 51”, making it a nice sized toddler quilt, perfect for cuddling up to while reading a story.
Blast Off, designed by Shawn Wallce for Riley Blake Designs is available now!
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