And....BLOOM! Spring Bloom Bloghop with Giveaway!

Hooray! Today's my stop on the Bella Caronia Spring Bloom bloghop celebrating the release of Amanda Caronia's first fabric line with Windham Fabrics.

Windham generously provided me with a FQ bundle containing all 15 prints from the fabric line plus some solid yardage - lucky me! And one lucky commenter will win their own FQ bundle courtesy of Windham Fabrics - find out how at the end of the post. EDIT: Giveaway closed!

I knew when I saw Spring Bloom that I wanted to make something simple that let the bright and cheerful fabrics shine through. Introducing And.....BLOOM!

A plus quilt pattern is quick to piece but takes a bit longer to plan and lay out. I wanted to float some of the pluses (which inspired the "And" part of the quilt's name), but mostly make them look like they're cascading down toward the quilt's bottom (runner-up name: Cascade of Blooms). I believe I succeeded - I really love how the layout landed. The quilt is lap sized - about 56"x78".

Edited: To answer a question below, I cut my squares at 5" and had more than enough fabric in the FQ bundle to make all these full pluses and a few part-pluses with a handful of squares left over. I used about a yard and a quarter's worth of the solid, which is a mottled grey from the Windham Fabrics Artist's palette.

Then I embarked on the quilting. I consulted Christina Cameli's (A Few Scraps) new book Step by Step Free Motion Quilting for a motif for the solid background and went to town on the ol' FMQ. Fun!

Using Aurifil 50 wt in a light grey (2600), I quilted each plus with a different motif, and used about 6 main motifs in all:

I think I like the bubbles best.

Backing used a few left-over cuts from the front plus some random fabric from my stash.

And binding was scraps as well, and it was applied entirely by machine. I stitched it to the back and brought it around to the front and stitched it down.

And there you have it - these fabrics look lovely in a quilt! Visit the other stops on the bloghop for chances to win and to see the other beautiful projects made with Spring Bloom!

April 20 Windham Fabrics Snip-its, Bella Caronia Blog

April 21 Leah and Bea Koch – Wintergreen and the Bee

April 22 Nell Timmer - Nell’s Notions

April 23 Jessica Darling

April 24 Kristy Daum - St. Louis Folk Victorian  

April 25 Sherri Sylvester - Thread Riding Hood

April 26 Cindy Wiens - Live a Colorful Life

April 27 Krista Hennebury - Poppyprint  

April 28 Felicity Ronaghan - Felicity Quilts

April 29 Casey York - The Studiolo

April 30 Janice Ryan - Better Off Thread

May 1 Deborah Moebes - Whipstitch

May 2 Bella Caronia Blog 

To have a chance at winning your very own FQ bundle of Spring Bloom, please leave one comment on this post. International entries are welcome.

As always, if I can't contact you, I can't get your prize to you. PLEASE make sure your email is linked to your commenter profile or leave it in your comment.

I'll randomly select a winner at approximately 8pm Pacific on Friday, May 1st. Good luck!

(This project is one of my Q2 FAL projects - two birds, one stone etc. etc.)