Last summer, in a mood to play, Meghan decided to sew up a whole mess of Bear Paw blocks, and in true Meghan fashion, also make it feel scrappy and also add tiny sashing. That playtime turned into our Summer 2024 FREE pattern, the Redford Quilt. You can download the pattern here, and read about our previous Redfords below:
Two Redfords in, we weren't done playing. We decided to make a third sample - Citrine Dreams - and change it up again. We used yardage for the background (an option included in the pattern), and one consistent gingham for the sashing (also an option included in the pattern), and then we decided to offset our blocks in their final construction, so that our columns have sort of a staggered effect. This is not an option in the pattern, but nothing changes in the material requirements, and I'll talk you through how we did it...keep reading to find out!
Redford finishes at 70 7/8" x 70 7/8", and requires 16 FQs for the Bear Paws. The Citrine Dreams bundle we pulled included some Fabelism, prints from RSS, a few solids, and some Carolina ginghams. We used Kona Doeskin for the background, and all together this palette was chef's kiss delicious. The texture alone? Perfection.
Cutting for a Redford couldn't be simpler - just squares, squares, and then some more squares. We like to stay organized by keeping like fabric with like fabric, and separating out our BG HST squares from our BG corner squares. We then mark our HST squares and dive in. Because we were using yardage for our background on this sample, we just went for it and chain pieced the heck out of these HSTs, tackling all 400 before we did anything else.
If I could offer you all one tip for making a Redford, it would be STAY ORGANIZED. Your system might look different then ours, but organization will be key in this process. For this Citrine Dreams version, we constructed all of our HSTs first, then kept them together, like with like. Working a few Bear Claws at a time, we paired up a Bear Paw square, a BG corner square, and two sets of HSTs, making sure all three fabrics were different from each other. Once those Bear Claws were sewn up, they were put in a pile and it was on to the next until all 100 Bear Claws were finished.
ONE. HUNDRED. BEAR CLAWS. Before turning these into Bear Paws, we organized them by the fabric used for the big Bear Paw square. Our next step will be to lay these out into their paws, and our one hard rule here is we don't want any of those larger squares repeated in a single block.
Okay, now we've come to the part of this sample where we deviated from the pattern and decided to try an offset layout of the blocks. This changes nothing as far as your sashing material requirements or cuts, but it will change how you construct a few of your blocks. So, step one is to lay out your quilt, alternating a column that starts and ends with a full block with a column that starts and ends with a half block. Again, we wanted to avoid using the same large square in a single block, and we also tried to keep any points from touching that were from the same fabric.
Once you begin to add your sashing and finishing up your blocks, those four "half blocks" will receive only a strip of short sashing (these instructions start at Step 11 in the pattern).
If you look closely in the above photos, you can see the little "half blocks" popped in every fifth or sixth block.
The last change you will need to make if you decide to offset your Redford blocks is that you will actually assemble the quilt top in columns, not in rows as the pattern is written. So, your shorter sashing pieces will be sewn horizontally, in between each block in a column, and then your long sashing pieces will be sewn vertically, connecting the columns to each other.
Voila! A finished Redford top. We chose a gorgeous plaid from Fableism as backing, and sent it off to Emily at So Sunny Quilts. She quilted in our fave Golden Eye pantograph, and we added yet another Fableism plaid as the binding.
Do you see what I'm saying about the texture? It's so good.
And that's Citrine Dreams, our slightly hacked version of a Redford quilt. We've just started in on a new Redford for our June 2025 MOTM...should we offset that one too? Or stay traditional? Stay tuned to find out.