Churn dash fabrics for my Inventory Quilt

Happy Saturday! Before I share my fabrics for the churn dashes I want to give you the links to the Designers Quilt Show.

Today is Day 6 and the last full day of new designers. Check them out here.

You can still catch some great classes too. Go to the classroom by clicking here.

And the rafflecopter link for prizes. Good luck!

The Inventory Quilt Project is on for several months. I am one of the featured designers for April. 

use code IQ20 to get 20% off this pattern in my online shop

The quilt I am making is my Liberated Churn Dash quilt. I'm excited to be making a second one! This one is going to look a LOT different from my first. For one thing, my background is not going to be white, but a mix of dark prints and red.

Here's my post about selecting my background fabrics.

Today I'm going to show you the fabrics I pulled for the churn dashes. 

I started by literally pulling a pile of fabrics from my collection.

I wasn't sure how these were all going to work together until I started organizing them by color. The first pull I did was the light neutrals or low volume prints.

Even here I was generous with the term and ended up with three different piles.

Then I went through and sorted the rest into warm and cool palettes. 

I'm going to try and keep them separate and make warm looking churn dashes and cool ones. Notice I didn't put any red fabrics in here because of the red fabric choice for some of my backgrounds.

The cool ones should play nicely off of the red backgrounds. There's not many here because I think I will end up mixing the low volumes with them. If I picked dark blues they would blend in with my background fabric choices.

Then I was left with a pile that sorted it self out as I was selecting prints. These won't make it into the churn dash quilt at all. 

Why?

• Some are too dark and too closely resemble fabrics I chose for the background. 
• Some don't read as warm, cool, or neutral - busy prints.
• Or the prints are too large and won't translate well into smaller cuts.
• Some are too bright a green and I think they will make the red backgrounds steal the show.
• Some I'm still at the 'I'm in love' stage and don't want to commit them to a project just yet!

I have made one small churn dash block. I used a low volume pile on this fun crane print. I'm happy that I will be making two with this background. I went with low volume because there are actually a lot of colours in this print and I wanted to make sure there was a good contrast between the churn dash and the background. I'm not sure how well I did with that, but I like it!

Your job if you are making one of these quilts with me is to pick your churn dash fabrics.

You could go with all low volume, or all warm or all cool colours. Maybe you have a fabric line that you are going to use.

You could check out the post from my workshop and see some of the fabric choices the quilters made for their liberated churn dash blocks. 

Liberated Churn Dash workshop

My first Liberated Churn Dash quilt used a cool palette with some brown to go with the backing fabric that my husband picked out. He actually picked the backing fabric first and I picked fabrics to go with it! 

Read my post about No Orange.

OK! Go play in your fabrics :)

With Joy,

Sarah V.

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Choosing Background Fabrics for the Liberated Churn Dash Quilt

It's time to start my Inventory Quilt! I'm excited to be making another Liberated Churn Dash quilt.

Get the pattern at 20% off with the code IQ20 - click to buy digital copy from my shop

What's an Inventory Quilt

My original quilt (seen above) is very modern looking, not just because of the churn dashes but the white  background. That was a challenge for me, believe it or not! I don't do white usually - and this time around I'm going in a completely different direction.

My background fabric is going to be different behind each churn. Well, almost all will be different as four of them will be solid red! Yep, red. I couldn't bring myself to make the background entirely red, and I also didn't have enough yardage on hand.

I decided to use what I have on hand. My inventory quilt is a snapshot of what I have on hand - what I've been collecting/keeping for the last ten years - and so I got creative with my background choices.

One of the large churn dashes will have a background of the tie dye fabric in the photo above. I actually won this fabric from Vicki Welsh a loooong time ago! Happy to finally have a home for it.

I've taken photos of all of my background fabrics after I measured to find enough yardage. I'll share them as I make the churn dashes. I did make a photo collage to give myself an idea of what the background will look like. I already see where I will move the finished blocks around, but for now, here's a peek at my background choices.

Pretty bold, right! The reds are all the same reds they just didn't photograph that way. I will move some around so the busy prints don't blur into each other :) But I feel confident that my choices will work. And with my background fabrics dark I will have fun with my bright fabrics for the churn dashes.

Your Job today

⛋Decide on your background fabric:

one solid or one print
two fabrics
a combination

⛋Wash and iron if required

⛋Photograph if desired (my kitten Sadie recommends it!)

Leave me a comment and tell me if your making an Inventory Quilt too!

With Joy,

Sarah V.

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What's an Inventory Quilt?

It's time to start planning for my Inventory Quilt! 

I'm one of the designers with a pattern featured for April over at Just Wanna Quilt. 
I'm making another  Liberated Churn Dash Quilt.

The pattern is discounted 20% when you use code IQ20 over at my payhip store.

Link to Liberated Churn Dash pattern

What's an Inventory Quilt?

An Inventory Quilt uses specific fabrics that you already have to make a visual representation in a quilt. The fabric you have is your inventory. You don't have to use all of your fabric to make one, but it can be a fun challenge.

I just finished making an Oh My Stars quilt designed by Pat Sloan. I challenged myself to cut each background square from a different fabric in my stash/inventory. I love the result!

The Oh My Stars pattern is free from Pat here. This would be a great inventory quilt pattern. You can also buy a pattern that gives you details for making the quilt larger, which is what I did! You can buy it at the link as well.

You could also choose just to make a quilt with your inventory of

red fabrics,
novelty fabrics, 
halloween fabrics
or Christmas fabrics. 

It doesn't have to be representative of  ALL of your fabrics!

When does the Inventory Quilt Project start?

The project was created by the Just Wanna Quilt directors. Some designers have already shared their patterns and started making quilts. It's never too late! You can find out more by joining the facebook group for the Inventory Quilt Project. Be sure to say hi when you do :)

Link to Inventory Quilt Project facebook group

Do I have to make the Liberated Churn Dash Quilt or buy a pattern to participate?

No! The first inventory quilt was made of a single shape repeated. You can see it here. 

Link to Inventory Quilt Project

You can use a pattern you already have or look for a free one. Pat Sloan just released a free pattern for the month of April that would be ideal for an inventory quilt! It will be 30 blocks with each block requiring a 6 1/2" fabric square for each block. Go check it out here and see if it's the quilt for you!

There are other designers with patterns featured in this project as well. 
Visit the facebook group to see them!

My quilt pattern finishes at 90" square and requires a large amount of background fabric. I have a work around for needing all that yardage for mine - I'm using a variety of fabrics for my background which I'll share in the next post about the Inventory Project. You could also just try out making one of the small liberated churn dashes by following my free tutorial here:

Liberated Churn Dash tutorial

For now, know that you can't do it wrong! It's a great project to get you into the fabric you already have and making something with it. 

As with every quilt we make,

 this one will have significant memories attached to it. 

Choose a pattern that will bring joy to you

 in the making and

 create fond memories later.

I'd love for you to join  me! 

If you want to get my pattern (remember code IQ20 gets you 20%) here's the link again:
Liberated Churn Dash Quilt pattern.



With Joy,

Sarah V.

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Inventory Quilt Project - Liberated Churn Dash Quilt

I'm making another one!

This year I'm a participating designer in the Just Wanna Quilt Inventory Quilt Project. What's an inventory quilt? Well, it can be anything you want! The idea is to use fabrics that you have - your stash - and make a quilt using them. It can be made with pieces from all of your fabrics or just your red fabrics. Or just fabrics from a favourite designer or all one theme. 

The idea was inspired by Jessica Quilter and has become a project through Just Wanna Quilt.

You can hear the first podcast episode to discuss the project here - Just Wanna Quilt Inventory Project is beginning! (this is a link to open and listen in Google) You can find the podcasts from the main site here too - Just Wanna Quilt podcast

Since then the project has become larger and is now including designers who are participating by making an inventory quilt using one of their patterns.

For me it had to be my Liberated Churn Dash quilt. In fact it's been hard for me to think about all of the other quilt projects I have in the works and not just work on this!

I am close to deciding if I am going to purchase a background fabric or not. I am thinking about trying to use what I have which might mean a mix of solid and print backgrounds.

You will be able to hear me talk about this project on the

 Just Wanna Quilt podcast on February 29! 

Yep! My first podcast appearance :)

 I can't think of a better way to use my extra day this year

 than focusing on a new quilting project!

You can join the JWQ Inventory Quilt sew along facebook group to find out more and meet more of the designers. Check out their patterns too as I have a feeling it's going to be hard to make just one inventory quilt.

With Joy,

Sarah V.

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