Basket Quilt Tutorial for Spring

I pull out this Pastel Modern Baskets quilt and hang it on my wall every spring. It’s more than just seasonal decor. Like many of our quilts, this one is a sentimental favorite with a unique backstory. And there’s a tutorial to make your own stack and slash basket quilt block.

I feel like Spring snuck up on me overnight this year. But I’ll take it! My yard is still in it’s “mostly dead, but hints of yellow” stage right now – my forsythia started blooming this week and just yesterday the daffodils popped open. We’ve had some nice, warm weather (which is supposed to cool off and get soggy this week) but I’ll take what I can get!

I started pulling out spring decor a few weeks ago. One of my long-time favorites is this pastels basket quilt that I made in 2006 – 11 years ago this spring. I designed it when I still worked at my local American Quilting quilt shop. It was my last project before I was going to have my 4th baby and take some time off.

Well, that baby decided to give us a scare and doctors decided he needed to get where we could see him so I suddenly found myself having a baby 3 ½ weeks earlier than planned.

I was almost done with the baskets quilt and the kits were cut, but I knew if I didn’t finish it before the baby arrived it would never happen. (And it wouldn’t have. I also remember planning to clean out my laundry room that week and that project didn’t happen until almost a year later. )

So I made my husband bring the quilt to the hospital and I finished the binding while the nurses started the induction. Haha. I had my husband drop-off the quilt at the shop a few days later to hang as a sample. I still love pulling this one out every spring. Partly because of it’s history. At the time it was kind of scary wondering if this baby would be okay and now I’m just so thankful that boy is a healthy, smart, and happy kid.

 

This is the same pattern that I used to make this solids version for the Spring 2016 Riley Blake booth at Quilt Market. It always amazes me how the choice of fabric totally changes the entire look of the quilt.

You can find the free tutorial for the Modern Basket Quilt Block here. There is also a printable PDF version available in my Etsy shop.

If you’re in the mood for other Spring projects, here are a few more fun ones to get your creative juices going:

Fabric Basket and Eggs

Economy (Square in a Square) Quilt Block tutorial

Fat Quarter Skirt Tutorial

Quilt-as-you-go Table Runner

Happy Creating and Happy Spring!