Ruby Star Society sent me a Fat Quarter Bundle of Alexia Abegg's line Vessel at the beginning of the year. I knew I wanted to use it but wasn't sure what to make.
The Vessel line is gorgeous and inspired by Alexia's pottery journey. I love the colors and some of the larger repeating prints. I didn't want to chop up the fabrics into tiny pieces so that is why I chose Paper Cuts. The Paper Cuts Pattern really shows off larger scale prints beautifully. The pattern includes scrappy information so you can use larger scraps. I did also write up a FQ Cutting Tutorial to use along with the pattern, which I did use for this quilt, especially for the directional prints.
I decided to use Add It Up in Chambray as my background fabric. I love how it compliments the Vessel line without distracting from it.
I did not end up using the minty fabrics in this quilt even though I loved those prints. I did make a mock up of this quilt to get an idea of how I wanted the fabrics to move throughout the quilt top.
Lately I have been printing out my mock ups to stick up above my sewing machine. It helps me stay organized as I am working on a quilt top - especially as I am being very specific about which fabrics go where in a quilt.
The Paper Cuts Quilt Pattern is a quick sew, my favorite! And you construct this pattern in columns once all of your blocks are ready.
If you like to nest seams, this quilt is great during final construction. You can press your column seams opposite directions to nest then during sewing. Or you can definitely press open and pin for accurate seams.
The Paper Cuts pattern is one that I almost don't like how it looks in the columns but the second they get sewn together it turns out beautiful. I think it's finally seeing the secondary designs that the background fabrics create. It totally feels like the little paper cut projects I'd make as a kid. Fold up paper into accordion pieces and then snip little triangles out and unfold it.
We snapped a few photos in the house but our yard was just coming back to life and everything was turning so green! So we also went into our driveway to take a couple photos.
I immediately knew I wanted to use this Behold pantograph when I sent it off to Kaitlyn of Knot and Thread Design. I love the movement it creates and since the Paper Cuts quilt has a vertical orientation, I liked the idea of the pantograph sort of mirroring that. Like little ribbons swaying back and forth from top to bottom of the quilt.
I love how the organic nature of this pantograph plays into the organic feeling of making pottery - the inspiration for this collection of fabric.
I bound the quilt in Add It Up Peach and backed it in Kona Black. The soft peach binding pulls out the orange and peach tones of the fabric and the black fabric on the back is bold.
The stitching on the back shows up so beautifully but I think that can also be a little terrifying to a longarm quilter! ha. Sorry Kaitlyn! But it turned out gorgeous, not sure I have a good photo of it though!
There we have it! Our March Make of the Month - Paper Cuts!
