by Kirsty
I’m excited to show you my Layer Cake Lily Quilt.
This project was a collaboration with the Fat Quarter Shop. They sent me 2 beautiful layer cakes of Ruby Star Society fabric, a lovely background fabric and the pattern (soon to be released – I’ll update this with the link once it’s available).
The Layer Cake Lily quilt pattern is part of the Fat Quarter Shop’s Shortcut Quilts series. As the name suggests, these patterns are easy to sew and make good use of pre-cuts.
Thinking You Might Make a Layer Cake Lily Quilt?
I think you should! Here are some great reasons to sew yourself a Layer Cake Lily Quilt:
- It’s a really fun quilt with a bold design
- It’s not at all complicated to sew
- If choosing fabric is a chore for you, then the ease of using a layer cake or two will be right in your wheelhouse
- You can easily substitute in fabric from your stash if you want to
Where Can I Find the Layer Cake Lily Quilt Pattern?
The Layer Cake Lily quilt pattern is a free PDF quilt pattern by the Fat Quarter Shop. The link will be here in a few days (I’ll update this post then). The pattern has instructions for 3 quilt sizes – small lap, large lap and twin. The version you see in this blog post is the small lap (58″ square).
The Fat Quarter Shop also has a kit for this quilt – you can find the Layer Cake Lily Quilt Kit here.
Let’s Talk Fabric
The 2 layer cakes (10″ squares) that I used were both designed by Rashida Coleman-Hale of Ruby Star Society by Moda. The first layer cake is from the fabric line Pivot.
The second layer cake I used is from the fabric line Pixel.
And finally, my background fabric was also also designed by Rashida – it’s Speckled in Teal. It’s a lovely, rich teal that leans much more navy than green. It’s one of my favourite background colours at the moment.
I did not need 2 full layer cakes to create this quilt – Fat Quarter Shop were just kind enough to send me both. As my background fabric is dark, I chose all the beautiful jewel toned squares from both lines to use as the lilies. These gorgeous, saturated pinks, yellows, oranges really pop against the teal. I also added in the low volume prints – their designs are just delightful.
And don’t forget, the Fat Quarter Shop has plenty of beautiful layer cakes to choose from, whatever your style.
Show Me the Quilt!
Here it is! I must say that I really love this quilt, in these fabrics especially. The lilies have that coordinated-scrappy feel that using a layer cake provides.
As I mentioned earlier, this quilt top is easy to sew. Lots of simple shapes and a good dose of chain piecing. I find chain piecing quite relaxing, so I enjoyed sewing this one up.
Backing and Binding
When my quilt top was finished I thought about some straight line quilting designs, but in the end opted for organic, wavy lines.
I used a dove grey thread which is my go-to colour whenever there’s a lot of contrast between the colours in the quilt top. Too light a thread will stand out too much on the dark fabric, and vice-versa. Light grey is the perfect, blending quilting thread colour in my opinion.
My backing fabric for this one was actually an experiment. Earlier this year I found a cool newsprint-type duvet cover that I thought would look great as a quilt back. Turns out it does. It even has a French theme, which you know is always a favourite around these parts.
For binding, I wanted a modern look for this quilt so I went with using the Speckled in Teal for my binding as well. I love how the lack of a frame puts more attention on the lilies.
I’m shaking my head over here because I can see the cat hair in the photo below. Sorry folks. Must have missed that bit with the sticky roller.
I normally like to use a zigzag stitch machine binding, however I was running low on turquoise thread. I chose to use a straight stitch instead as it doesn’t use up as much thread as the hungry zigzag stitch. I glue basted this binding before sewing, so it was easy to sew down.
Happy Sewing!
I hope you find the time to make yourself a Layer Cake Lilies quilt. It’s fun, modern and easy to sew, and a delight when it comes to choosing fabric.
