Quilt in Progress: Curves AND Squares

I haven’t done a quilt in progress post in a while, and I’ve been working on something so fun, I can’t wait until it’s finished to share!

This quilt combines two of my favorite things: curved piecing and Trip Around the World. Traditionally, the trip around the world quilt design features rows of matching color/fabric squares radiating out from the center of the quilt. I have loved this pattern forever – I made my first one in 2005 with 1930’s repro fabrics (that’s a story for another day!).

You may remember a few years ago the scrappy trip around blocks were a big craze among online quilters. This was a variation on the traditional Trip Around design featuring blocks of squares rather than the large radiating, whole quilt pattern. These quilts were super fun and easy to make with scraps and what you have on hand. I never made one, but I enjoyed seeing everyone else’s on IG!

Back to my current quilt in progress: I’m going to call these more like granny squares because the rounds of squares are only 3 deep and divided into blocks. At the get-go, my goal was to create granny square style blocks and add a curved element to make the overall design more interesting…and this is what I came up with.

The fabrics: new Vintage print collection by Sweetwater for Moda. This collection is a celebration of Sweetwater’s greatest hits over the last ten years or so. They’ve recolored them into a new collection featuring navy, red, gold, and aqua. It is SUCH a cute collection, I couldn’t resist (-: I have bundles and layer cakes available if you want to sew something too. Get them <<here>>

Piecing: since I started from scratch on these (no pattern), I set some rules for myself when choosing fabrics. I’m making nine blocks – four with red on the outside curved pieces and five with navy. Within the squares part of the blocks, I set out to maintain maximum contrast so the pattern really stands out. Since the values of the fabrics are pretty similar across the collection, I used color for contrast: blue next to gold, cream next to red, etc.

The Vintage collection doesn’t include any green, so I pulled a few additional prints from my Sweetwater stash to add some green as well as some different print patterns. I can’t resist adding a few scraps! Some of the fabrics are directional, which is something I don’t usually worry about, but I really wanted the cute text prints to be right side up in all the blocks, so I had to pay attention to how I cut the pieces and what the block orientation would be as I sewed.

Whew! now as I write it out, it kinda seems like a lot of fuss for kind of a simple block, but it’s so worth it! I’m thrilled with how this is coming together and hope you enjoy this little peek. My plan is to get this finished this month and have the pattern ready for you before summer. Get your Vintage fabric and Classic Curves Plus ruler ready now (-:

What’s on your design wall?

Happy sewing,