I’m so excited! Riley Blake Designs has announced a brand new free Quilt Block Challenge for 2021!
Each week for the next 16 weeks there will be a new 10″ x 10″ quilt block pattern by a Riley Blake Designer. And each week there will be a free printable PDF pattern to go with it. The final week Riley Blake will release the sampler quilt layout (it’s a surprise!) including fabric requirements and cutting/assembling instructions to finish your quilt.
This week’s block is a Pinwheel Star designed by Amanda of Jedi Craft Girl. She made her block using her fun new fabric collection, Mod Meow that’s coming to stores this month.
Visit Amanda’s blog to download this week’s free quilt block pattern PDF.
Riley Blake just released a bunch of new colors in their solids Confetti Cottons range. I love Christopher’s block version in all solids.
Here is my block with my color/fabric pull for my quilt. I am already jazzed about where this is going!
I wanted to push myself out of my traditional white-background-all-the-time look. I’ve seen a bunch of navy quilts that have had me smitten recently, so I decided to head that direction.
For my solids palette I’m using Riley Blake Confetti Cottons in Cloud, Tearose, Redwood, Songbird, and Oxford Blue. The Oxford Blue is a brand new color for Riley Blake and I love it! Has kind of a faded-navy feel – so it reads blue in pictures and not black. I have a feeling this is going to be one of my go to colors.
And it’s going to be the main color for this quilt.
In addition to the solids, I’m mixing in the reds, whites, and blues from my upcoming Notting Hill collection. This collection is going to hit stores by the end of the month. YAY!!! (If you’re looking to preorder, and to make sure you don’t miss it, Stitches N Giggles, Lou Lou’s Fabric Company, The Fat Quarter Shop, and Fort Worth Fabric Studio have preorder status available.)
You may remember last year’s Quilt Block challenge. It was a lot of fun, and a great resource for learning how to make 12 classic quilt blocks. (It was also a little hectic as we came up with the plan as something to keep us busy right as the world shut down, so we were kind of designing on the fly.)
This time everything is planned to perfection with uniform printable patterns and a list fabric requirements ahead of time and a new block available every Tuesday until mid-June. Woohoo! You can find the printable fabric requirements list here.
The blocks this year are a fun, unique step up from the classic blocks last year. They’re a great skill builder with a variety of designs. I’m so excited to sew-along!
If you’re looking for additional details, you can find everything you need on the RBD Block Challenge Page. And if you are sewing along as well, share your makes on Instagram using #confetticottons, #rileyblakedesigns, #iloverileyblake, and tag @rileyblakedesigns.
Happy Sewing!
POST UPDATE! To see the finished 2021 Sampler Quilt Click HERE.
Sue
Thank you for the links and particularly the alternative color pics. I’m going to have see another week or two of the patterns before I decide on fabrics. Not wild about these colors.
Andrea Skinner
Hi Amy! Would you be able to let us know the yardage for each of the fabric choices that you are doing? Your choices are perfect for my mom and I would love to make this quilt for her.
Amy
I don’t have exact fabric requirements because I’m going to decide on color/fabric choices as I go (sorry, not helpful, I know). I don’t have the patterns yet for all of the blocks, so haven’t decided on color placement. But I can say that I totaled up the background yardage (which in the Oxford Blues) – which is by far the biggest chunk. It’s about 3 3/4 yards (I’m erring on the generous size). I’d get about 1/2 yard of the rest. I haven’t decided for sure on which color I’ll use for the contrasting sashing, but I’m leaning toward Songbird at this point.
In The Boon Docks
Love your block! The dark background looks to be fun and something I want to try! If not for you I would not know about the sew along! Think I’ll join! Thanks for links!
debee109
Ditto thanks. Do like the alternative colours. Be interested to know if you have decided to replace the colours ie the red check is always going to replace the colour Chive, Songbird is going to replace Lodge Pole etc. or simply decided to use different colours within your palette just for this block. Thank you.
Amy
I’m going to decide colors and prints as I go. Sorry that’s not too helpful…
Gen
Just to clarify from your response to Debee109, you are not subbing one color for a specific color on the pattern, but just deciding as you go? I have very limited access to nice fabrics and would need to order – so this makes it very difficult, but I agree it is VERY hard to sub colors when you don’t know what future blocks will look like…………….and I have very limited quilting/picking colors experience. But this sure sounds like fun! Do you know what size the finished quilt is?
Thank you for sharing!
Amy
The finished quilt is going to be 70″ x 70″. Here’s something to help reduce stress – if you’ve got one unifying background (such as white, or in this case Oxford Blue) and you pick a simple palette of coordinating fabrics (especially in a traditionally popular color combination like red, white, and blue) you can’t go wrong. The background color ties everything together nicely and lets the blocks pop on their own. This could be a fun project to test your color and fabric choices! You’ve got this!