Let’s kick off the Arctic Vortex Quilt Along! I’m sew excited for all the fun!
Arctic Vortex Quilt Along
Dates: September 27 through November 22, 2022
Duration: 8 weeks
Quilt Sizes: Tree skirt or hexagonal quilt:
- Large: 53” x 61”
- Medium: 47” x 56”
- Mini: 23” x 28”
Schedule
Week 1: Pick your fabrics, get your pattern, plan your coloring sheet
Week 2: Cut, label, and organize your pieces
Week 3: Make 3 Vortex Blocks
Week 4: Make 3 Vortex Blocks
Week 5: Make 12 Setting Triangles
Week 6: Assemble quilt top & Prepare to quilt
Week 7: Quilt
Week 8: Bind
Read the FAQs
Step 1: Buy the pattern.
Step 2: Plan your quilt!
The first question is which size Arctic Vortex Quilt are you making? The medium size makes a good throw quilt or tree skirt, but if you want a bigger tree skirt, the large size is a few inches larger thanks to the added sashing, which also adds a little extra visual interest. Either one can be made using fat quarters or yardage. You can even go scrappy if you have long strips hanging around in your scrap basket.
Either way, you’ll want to pair up fabrics, since each block is made with 2 colours of strips. You can choose high contrast pairs or low contrast pairs.
And of course the star of the show is the focal fabric for the diamonds! We’ll talk more about fussy cutting next week, but you can print out the diamond template from the pattern to check if your motifs are the right scale for fussy cutting. Feel free to go scrappy with these as well!
You can read about my fabric pull for the scrappy large tree skirt I’ll be making here.
And if you’re stuck on how to pick fabrics, check out this blog post with my 3 secret formulas to picking fabric colours that work together!
I always recommend mocking up your quilt on a colouring page. As much as I love my pencil crayons, PreQuilt is SO much faster!
Especially for a quilt like Arctic Vortex where there are a large number of pieces. Go to the coloring page, click “Open” under the right size of Arctic Vortex quilt to load the colouring page. To change a colour, click on the pencil beside it and pick your colour. Easy peasy! If you’re using yardage instead of fat quarters, just set 3 letters for each of your 4 strip fabrics. When you’re done, make sure to download your finished colouring page (or take a screenshot. Or snap a picture of your computer screen!) because you’ll need it for this week’s giveaway!
Step 4: Share!
Remember to share your coloring page and fabric pull on Instagram using #ArcticVortexQAL
Giveaway is closed
This week’s prize is 1 year PreQuilt Market subscription, sponsored by PreQuilt! A $100 USD value!
PreQuilt is an online design tool for quilters. It’s a web application, meaning all you need is the internet to get started. PreQuilt is preloaded with all your favourite quilt blocks and colour swatches from Kona, Free Spirit, and more. Jump in and start designing your next quilt with our preloaded blocks, or create your own quilt block designs for your own unique designs. In a design rut? Need some colour or design inspiration? Let the PreQuilt randomization features dazzle you by randomizing colours, block rotations, and block layouts to jump start your creative process. You’ll discover colour combinations and design layouts that you may never have considered. Get started on your next quilt at prequilt.com!
Win 12 months of PreQuilt Market subscription for free! Design and save unlimited quilts, upload unlimited print fabrics, as well as create and save custom quilt blocks to your personal block library (and so much more)!
Head over to the Instagram post for details on the giveaway! Best of luck!
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