A Scrappy Twist on the Sprightly Quilt Pattern
Do you have a Fat Quarter Bundle that you want to use, but just don’t know what to make with it? How about a Sprightly quilt?!
While I originally designed and wrote the Sprightly Quilt Pattern for fabric yardage, I recently made a scrappy version using Fat Quarters and I’m excited to share it with you! If you want to use a Fat Quarter bundle to make a Sprightly quilt, you’ll definitely want to check out these tips and tricks!
How to use Fat Quarters to make the Sprightly Quilt
The easiest way I can explain to you how to use Fat Quarters in a Sprightly quilt is to use 1 Fat quarter per block on your quilt. For instance, if you are making a Throw Size with 12 blocks, you’ll want to use 12 Fat Quarters. The rest of these instructions will only make sense if you follow along with the pattern. So, if you need to grab the pattern, visit the shop here!
Cutting your Fat Quarters
If you have 1 Fat Quarter per block on your quilt, this is an easy way to cut: From each Fat Quarter, cut out 1 Piece A, 2 Piece B, 4 Piece F, and 4 Piece D.
Alternatively, if you are using AccuQuilt to cut your quilt pieces, the cutting instructions are slightly different. See the pattern for the specific dies to use for cutting and pay close attention to cut the correct number of each shape for each block. I personally cut out the fabrics for this quilt on AccuQuilt and it was so fast & accurate!
Whether you are making a scrappy version of Sprightly or not, cut out the background fabrics as stated in the pattern. If you decide to add more blocks, then make sure you have more background fabric to use!
Mix and Match Fabrics
Once your Fat Quarters are cut, it’s time to mix and match them into the combinations for the scrappy quilt blocks. For each block, you’ll need to set aside 1 Piece A and the matching 4 Piece F, 2 Piece B, 2 Piece D of 1 fabric, and 2 Piece D of another fabric. (1 Piece D turns into 4 Flying Geese).
Making alternative Quilt sizes
You’ll see the throw size in the Sprightly pattern uses 12 blocks, but you might have noticed that my quilt uses 16 blocks, and not 12.
I decided to make my scrappy version a little larger by adding 4 more blocks, bringing it to a square shape instead of a rectangle! If you’re using Fat Quarters or fabric scraps to make your quilt, it’s pretty easy to add blocks to adjust the size & shape! I added the name width border as the pattern calls for 🙂
Remember, if you are making your quilt larger while using scraps, you will need to increase the amount of background fabric you buy and cut out more background pieces too.
Quilting Cotton Fat Quarters
The fabrics I used on this quilt are from a collection called Hand Stitched by Karen Lewis for FIGO fabrics. Getting a Fat Quarter bundle that is all from the same collection is awesome! It’s a fantastic way to ensure the fabrics will all coordinate in one awesome quilt!
Quilting and Binding on my Scrappy Sprightly Quilt
Making this scrappy Fat Quarter quilt was so fun, and I’m really excited about how it all came together! To finish the quilt, my mom quilted it on her long arm machine! We decided to use an edge-to-edge computerized design called Leaf Branch Pano.
After quilting, I did the binding by stitching the first side down on machine and folding over to hand stitch with big, bold hand stitching. I made a whole binding tutorial for this process. You can find it in part 3 of my 3-part Quilt Binding series.
