Fat Eighth Frenzy Pattern

Today’s post is brought to you by my mom, Grandma Jane………

The Fat Quarter Shop has just released a new Shortcut Quilt Pattern called the Fat Eighth Frenzy Pattern! I love the name of this pattern as I am frequently in a “frenzy” trying to make a quilt for a gift at the last moment. There is also a Bonus project pattern included for a smaller quilt using the scraps from the bigger quilt! Brilliant!

This quick and very easy pattern uses cuts of fabric called “fat eighths.” A fat eighth is a 9 inch by 22 inch piece of fabric—half the size of a fat quarter. These are available in bundles with coordinating fabrics from the same fabric line. Just like with other pre-cuts –this is a great way to easily choose some great fabrics without the headache of trying to coordinate everything on your own.

I am a big fan of Moda designer, Kate Spain, and choose her line, Daydream, to use for this project. We have lots of babies being born in the family and to friends so this fun, playful fabric with such gorgeous bright fabrics was perfect for a new little one!

I have to say I fell in love with the little rainbow bunny who leaps across the scene in the larger scale fabric. I used an extra piece of this on the back of the larger quilt as I cannot resist piecing the backs of my quilts.

For those of you out there who sew mainly garments but have thought you would like to try your hand at quilting—this will be a great “get started on quilting” project. The blocks are large, there are no seams to match up and it is a very easy quilt to quilt on your home machine with some straight line quilting. I did vertical quilting 2 inches apart on the large quilt and diagonal quilting 2.5 inches apart on the smaller quilt!

You can find the pattern by clicking HERE.

And here are some suggestions from me:

1. The pattern calls for 30 fat eighths—15 light and 15 dark. This is very important as you want there to be good contrast in the quilt. Select these carefully.

2. Layout your fabrics before you start and pay careful attention to color placement so you have a good mix of print scale and color value. Scale is the size of the print in the fabric—small, medium and large. Color value is the lightness or darkness of a color. Another way to think about color value is contrast. You really want a good distribution of both scale and contrast in this pattern as you have such large blocks. This was the biggest challenge to me with this quilt.

3. Speed up the cutting by layering and cutting 3-4 fabrics at the same time—just make sure the fat eighth pieces are lined up carefully before you make any cuts. You will be cutting 8.5 inch x 20.5 inch blocks so there is not much room for error with a 9 inch cut of fabric.

4. If making the Bonus quilt—cut the triangle scrap off with your ruler to make sure you have a consistent sized triangle and then just chain piece those perfectly paired triangles together to make your HST’s! (Half-square triangles)! Easy peasey! (I squared the HST’s to 7.5 inches before sewing together.)

These two quilts will make a great coordinating set as a baby gift—the larger one is perfect for mama and baby snuggling in the rocker and the smaller one is a great car seat or stroller throw for those chilly winter days.

Have fun quilting!

And again, you can find the full pattern HERE.

— Grandma Jane

Fat Quarter Shop is also offering 20% off Fat Eighth bundles for a limited time!