Bayhill Studio

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Polar Patchwork Flannel Toddler Quilt

Cool weather is right around the corner which means it’s time to pull out the flannel! I love working with flannel, and Riley Blake Designs is known for it’s high quality, super soft and cozy flannel, so of course, that’s what I had to choose for this easy and adorable patchwork quilt.

The patchwork is made up of 4 1/2” squares sewn into simple 4-patch units and trimmed to 8” square, however, I wanted to really highlight the adorable scenes in the Nice Ice Baby prints, so each row also includes two 8” squares. The finished quilt measures approximately 46” square.

Here you can see the larger blocks. Because the Nice Ice Baby main print is large scale, keeping a few larger blocks helps to show off the little vignettes and sweet baby animals to the fullest. Notice how there are smaller squares using the same prints, and how the animals get cut off. This was fine because I knew I would also be highlighting them in the 8” squares.

In addition to the Nice Ice Baby prints, I incorporated Navy and Gray Gingham prints from the Riley Blake designer flannel line.

I used the Riley Blake Gray Flannel Gingham for the quilt back, and because it wasn’t quite wide enough, I added a row of the 8” squares. Cute!

For the quilting, I did an overall meandering stitch, but I added little stars, or snowflakes, randomly throughout. One tip for quilting with flannel - keep the quilting design large scale. On cotton, I can do a really tight meandering stitch, but flannel can be trickier to work with on a home machine. It is bulkier and doesn’t slide easily across the machine bed like cotton does, hence there may be some pulling. To prevent puckers and pulling, I recommend you think large scale when it comes to the quilting design.

Her is another look at the quilting. Do you see the little snowflakes? These are super easy add to any straight line or meandering design.

The soft Mint Snowflakes print made a perfect binding.

I created a short video showing exactly how I machine bind my quilts. The instructions are the same for flannel and cotton fabrics.

Riley Blake Designer Flannel fabrics, including the Nice Ice Baby prints you see here, are available now at local and online quilt shops.

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