It's finally here!! The day I am sharing all about my Scrappy Rainbow Petal Patch quilt! Grab something yummy to drink and buckle up, it's gonna be a beautiful in-depth look at how I used over 425+ fabrics in this scrappy rainbow quilt! No joke, this is the biggest blogpost I've ever written in my 9 years of quilt blogging.
First things first. Petal Patch includes 4 sizes, highlights FQs and stash sewing and is Advanced Beginner friendly. We made three samples for the Petal Patch Release, the Scrappy, the Cover and the Retro, all using FQs. Each of these three samples were made in the Throw Size option.
In 2025, we did our TCJ Make of the Month project, where each month we highlight a TCJ pattern and create a new sample of it. The Petal Patch was our July MOTM. I wanted to sew entirely from my stash and scraps. 100% truly scrappy for the background and the flowers and leaves. And to further my need to sew with as many fabrics as possible, I also decided I wanted to do a rainbow palette. What is better than blowing up a stash so beautifully organized by color?! Below is my mock up I created to give myself a rough guideline for how the color will move across the quilt.
This Petal Patch has 15 blocks and finishes as the Large Throw size at 73” x 80”. My idea was to treat the flowers and the leaves are separate parts of the rainbow color palette. So starting top left in the flowers it snakes left to right and top to bottom from yellow to gold to orange to reds to pinks. Then starting in the bottom right block, the leaves start to move right to left, bottom to top in purples to blues to greens. The only consistent part of this entire top will be the flower centers (16 patch). I thought in a very scrappy, color changing quilt, it would be nice to have one moment for the eye to rest and see something repetitive.
In the mock up I choose a wasabi color greenish yellow and a white for the 16 patch. I knew I didn’t want true white and wanted both to be prints. I immediately decided the yellow fabric would be this gorgeous Liberty of London floral and then I auditioned several other fabrics for it’s pair.
I narrowed it down to these two and made a 16 patch of each to see how they looked.
I did love the citrine and teal Tula Pink stripe a lot but it felt too contrasted. I wanted something a bit more similar in tone, scale and color. So I ended up going with the double floral print on the left.
Here is my pile of low volume prints I brought home from my personal stash at the studio.
I sewed from home a lot more this past summer due to schedules and childcare and let me tell you - I blew up my guest room little by little with fabric. Speaking of, want to see what my sewing situation looked like?
My desk is immediately to the right of the door here, across from the bed. I had my sewing machine, my laptop and my iPad on it. Sewing, emails, TV shows. And then I had a folding table set up in the corner with a cutting mat, my wool pad and iron. And piles on piles of fabric on the bed. It is organized chaos, but it worked for what I needed!
I brought home stacks of fabric in different rounds from the studio. I first brought home all my yellows/golds and worked on my first 4 flowers. I was working block by block and not repeating a single fabric. That means for the petals alone, there are 20 different fabrics per block. And then add different low volume fabrics for the background of the flowers and it is upwards of 30 different fabrics. So each block has the possibility of having 50 different fabrics in it. To stay organized, I had to work block by block. I spent a good chunk of time working on the color flow and cutting each petal out individually before sewing the background fabrics to them.
This is the big pile of all the fabrics I used in the first four flower petals. Once I had them laid out and happy with how they looked, I started working on cutting my background squares. I decided for this, I would also work block by block to stay organized. I did cut multiples of each square needed so I could have a little pile going but I add in new background fabrics each round so it does appear scrappy and not super planned out.
YOU GUYS. THESE ARE SO FREAKING FUN. I was so happy with how these first four turned out and made me even more excited to keep going. It’s always a little daunting at the start of a project like this, hoping the effort and mess pays off.
The Petal Patch Pattern includes lots of scrap charts for each size and all the cuts needed for each part of the design. I printed this page out, highlighted my size and have it tapped to my closet door as a quick easy reminder of what I am cutting. It was a breeze!
I organized my first round of fabric back into their stacks and scrap bins and headed back to the studio. I was most worried about having enough oranges and reds in my stash so I basically brought home that entire section and it filled 3 bins. It was a heavy load.
Again, I worked block by block and I moved fabrics around a lot to make sure I liked the flow. I finished the 5th block in the top row (far right) and then moved down to the 6th block (second row) all the way to the 8th block. These ones really went from peachy orange, to burnt orange, to coral red, to red and dark red.
Once I had them all cut, it was time to sew all the background squares to these petal fabrics and put the blocks together.
Yummy yummy yummy. For being most nervous about how my stash would work in these colors, they turned out beautifully. At this point I had 8 of the 15 flowers done. And then it was time to bring home alllll my magentas, pinks, blushes to finish out the last 7 flowers.
When I started a new flower block, I intentionally began with the upper left most petal fabric and worked clock wise around the block for the color to softly change. And for the starting point of the color palette I try and reference the last part of the palette from the block before. So there is a faint circular/pinwheel color change within in flower block. For example, this is block 8 which ends in a deeper red color (upper left petal on the left side):
So I started my block 9 fabric pull by continuing on the deep red through to eventually move towards a deeper magenta as we move into the pink color family. I also tried to sort of match the color change in the outside petals with the triangles needed to finish the 16 patch center of the flower. It’s not always perfect but I do love the visual movement it provides.
Before I started sewing the blocks, I decided to cut out all the fabrics first. I wanted to focus first on finishing blocks 9 and 10 in the middle row before moving to the bottom row of all pinks.
See how in the upper left side of block 9, I finished on the bright magenta bear print and then starting the fabric of block 10 in the top upper left spot with another deep magenta fabric before going clockwise and changing the colors to a brighter hot pink?
At this point, I had the final 5 flower blocks to work through and all in shades of pink. I decided instead of going to block 11, the first one on the left side of the bottom row, I choose to start on block 15. This allowed me to know the final stopping point of the pink journey and work backwards. I wanted the 15th block to be a VERY light pink blush block. And also, at this point my guest bed was completely overrun with fabric.
One change in my process during these final 5 blocks, was that I pulled 20 fabrics for each block BEFORE I started cutting them out. I have SO MUCH pink, peach, blush fabric on hand, that I knew working block by block would be more overwhelming and I wouldn’t be able to control the color movement as much because I think I’d get lost in the fabric. And these little line ups were just rough ideas, I knew I could move a fabric here or there when I started to actually cut out the pieces but it helped give me a structure for these final 5 flower blocks.
Here is my block 11 pull (far left of bottom row), as once I had pulled my fabric, it was the first one I would work on. And the below it, are pulls for block 12 - 15 (bottom to top).
I found the show Sullivan’s Crossing during these last 5 flowers and watched it for hours on end as I worked on these blocks. The first two seasons just got added on Netflix. If you don’t know, Gilmore Girls, is my number one ride or die rewatch show. And Sullivan’s Crossing has Luke and Tristian from Gilmore Girls in it. The show is a family drama style with hints of Hallmark Channel vibes. It is a feel good and have a good cry type of show. Just what I needed.
These blocks were a creative therapy for me last July. I was able to move my hands and use my love of color to help me stay present when I’d rather just turn off my mind. Creativity is such a gift. The silence and stillness I’ve been focusing on this summer has been difficult for me to allow but I know is what I need. I am starting to feel the benefits of slowing down and being more intentional to limit the noise. Also, I had yet to figure out I was in a real deep depression.
Here are the final 5 flower blocks.
Each block brought so much joy. I adored sewing scrappy and with my stash. It isn’t a practice I’ve prioritized in years and I am going to continue to be sure I focus on it more and more this year. Some of these fabrics I’ve had for over 8 years!
Here are all 7 blocks together that I sewed during this one week.
And now here are all 15 flower blocks together in their layout on the wall! Remember, they each get a leaf block attached with a stem.
So now that all of the flower blocks were done, it is time to move onto the leaf blocks! And I started at the bottom and moved towards the top. We were going from light pink in the last flower to light purple through deep purple in the first 5 leaf blocks for the bottom row. I luckily had this section of fabric here at the house. After I finished the purples, I had to go back to the studio to grab my blues and greens.
I took out all the purples I was interested in but I needed significantly less fabric for the leaf blocks in a color gradient than in the flower blocks. There are only 6 leaves in each block so I only need a total of 30 purple fabrics. I was also mindful that they had to be larger scraps, no strips like for the flower blocks.
Also, I don’t have a lot of purple fabrics so I was most nervous about this section. But thankfully because it’s a smaller total quantity of purple, I think it turned out perfectly!
Next it was time to actually sew the leaf blocks together. I worked my way through making sure the stems in the leaf block were not the same fabrics in the leaves themselves. I used my large stash of low volume whites.
Once these five were done, I needed to head back to the studio to grab my blues and greens from my cabinets there. Here is what I brought home, just a giant bin of fabrics.
I picked out all the fabrics I wanted to use for my middle row of leaves - the blues. I laid them out in their block stacks (6 fabrics per block) and then again from lightest to darkest so I could see the color gradient as one giant palette. I did this to confirm I thought the color movement was smooth and big enough as the overall “blue” range. Next I cut them and laid them on the design wall before sewing any of them together.
This is when the true rainbow vibes really started to show. These blues made me SO excited. Blue is basically on even playing field with my love of yellow. And I was thrilled with the different prints and textures and colors shown in this row. Next up it was sewing them into the leaves!
Now here is the design wall before I started going into the green leaves.
I repeated the same steps as above with pulling the green fabrics together.
About six or seven years ago, I use to say that green was one of my least favorite colors. And now, it is absolutely one of my favorites. There are so many variaties of greens and warmths and cool tones. I feel like I could put green into any quilt and it would make sense.
This is probably my favorite rainbow make I’ve ever worked on. And I used around 450 different fabrics in this quilt top. And I think my scraps were making scrap babies when I was not looking. Somehow I ended up with more than when I started. And it makes me only ever want to sew scrappy from here on out.
And now here are all the individual flower and leaf blocks on the wall!!
Now it was time to sew these flowers and leaves into final blocks. I decided to work block by block and cut out the sashing as I went. I spent about eight hours listening to an audiobook (Girls Like Us by Cristina Alger) and got all 15 blocks done and then sewn together. My back was sore at the end of the day but I was thrilled to have this quilt complete.
Here are a few of my favorite favorite blocks.
I was running out steam and light but snapped a few photos of the top on the back of the guest room door. I had to wait for Luke to get home from camping to have him help me take studio photos.
What this scrappy rainbow Petal Patch did for me this past summer is incalculable.
This had been my summer of stillness and extreme emotional exhaustion. The summer of holding two opposite thoughts, feelings, ideas at the same time and not running from them. Finding a path to not being fully overwhelmed by them. Crying daily because I had stopped moving. I had stopped striving. I had stopped trying to have it all together.
I was sitting and allowing my body to rightsize itself. I was allowing my messy to be present and fully alive. I was slowly moving through my days with more kindness and allowing myself this time to just exist.
Working on this quilt was enormously helpful to my daily processing. I used over 450 different fabrics from my personal stash and that is probably also the number of times I have shed tears while working on it. And HELLO, she turned out spectacular!! All I’d done was allow my feelings a place to land and I placed them in this quilt. It is full of love.
I was so excited to send this top off for longarm quilting and I gave it to Emily of So Sunny Quilts. She has this gorgeous neon variegated thread that she has shown me before but I never felt it was right for any projects until this one! And I am SO happy we used it. We also picked a pantograph design called Skadaddle.
I mean isn't that just divine?! I love it so so much. I decided to back the quilt in Bella Cantaloupe and bound it in a classic black and white gingham.
I added a fun Campfire Glow label to the back as the final cherry on top.
I am thankful that I had the space this past summer to sit in the chaos internally and use my hand to create beauty out of the chaos externally. This scrappy rainbow quilt is a visual tangible reminder that what can feel out of our control when we TRY to control it, can actually guide us to where we need to let go. My goal in my work is to learn to embrace the chaos and find a way to bring beauty from it.
The Petal Patch pattern is available now in the shop!