Lighthouse Quilt Along Week 1: Quilt Top Design

Lighthouse Quilt Along by Fresh Lemons Quilts : Faith

Welcome everyone to the first day of the

! I'm so excited to share the process of making this fun and beautiful quilt with you. And finally share my finished quilt photos with you as well!

Lighthouse Quilt by Fresh Lemons Quilts : Faith

I'm really pleased with how the quilt turned out. I enjoyed working with the new Palette line by Marcia Derse so much. (More on the exact fabrics I used later in the post.)

So let's get started!

Lighthouse QAL Week 1: Quilt Top Design

This week we are going to start out the quilt along by focusing on Quilt Top Design. This is when you are going to make 2 very important decisions:

1. Size of the quilt you’d like to make. 2. Color of your quilt blocks/top.

The blocks in the Lighthouse quilt are 8” x 8” finished. My quilt is 5 blocks x 5 blocks, meaning my quilt measure 40” x 40” finished. This is a baby size or wall hanging size. Some of you may want to make this quilt larger.

Type

Blocks

Finished Size

Baby

5 blocks by 5 blocks = 25 blocks

40" x 40"

Lap

7 blocks by 9 blocks = 63 blocks

56" x 72"

Twin

8 blocks by 11 blocks = 88 blocks

64" x 88"

Queen

11 blocks by 12 blocks = 132 blocks

88" x 96"

King

13 blocks by 12 blocks = 156 blocks

104" x 96"

Tip: Keep in mind, each finished block is going to require paper piecing 8 templates. (Easy templates, but still 8 each). So if you are new to quilting, you *may* not want to jump right into a King Sized quilt with 156 blocks, which equates to 1248 paper pieced templates. I'm sure it would be stunning though!

Once you decide on what size you'd like to make, it's time to plan your colors.

Below I've provided PDF download links to coloring page worksheets. Simply download the size quilt you'd like to make, grab some colored pencils and start designing.

I've shaded in the background with a light grey - but this can be any color you'd like to use as the background of your blocks. (Please understand I am not able to provide all possible combinations of quilt block layouts as PDF coloring pages. If you'd like a different size quilt, you can cut and tape the templates.)

And just to get those creative juices flowing....here are some ideas. You could make a complete rainbow gradient quilt just like mine.

Lighthouse Quilt Along Design by Fresh Lemons Quilts : Faith

Or have a common color component that appears consistently throughout the quilt blocks and ties them all together.

And maybe that common color is really several shades of a color (in this case, brown).

Or maybe you just have a fabric collection that you want to use in a scrappy way as the focal fabrics in the quilt. That's great too!

For those interested in making a quilt like mine, I used Marcia Derse's Palette Fabric line. I just found out that the release date was pushed back a little to January 2014. If you happen to want to wait until then, or stumbled across this quilt along at a later date, do not worry. These posts and directions will live on my blog for as long as my blog is around.

Palette by Marcia Derse for Windham Fabrics

The following are the exact fabrics I used in my quilt (baby sized) and I did have fabric left over. All fabrics are from Marcia Derse - Palette for Windham Fabrics, January 2014.

Quilt Top: 1-1/2 yards of 37098-12 Chalk 1/4 yard each of: 37098-6 Mustard, 37098-13 Saffron, 37098-14 Duckling, 37098-15 Salmon, 37098-16 Cherry, 37098-17 Papaya, 37098-19 Pumpkin, 37098-21 Wine, 37098-20 Cranberry, 37098-22 Cardinal, 37098-25 Concord Grape, 37098-26 Lavender, 37098-27 Blueberry, 37098-28 Dark Teal, 37098-29 Curacao, 37098-30 Mediterranean, 37098-31 Caribbean, 37098-33 Ocean, 37098-34 Spruce, 37098-35 Mint, 37098-36 Grass, 37098-37 Olive, 37098-38 Everglade, 37098-40 Chartreuse Backing: 2 yards of 37098-98 Taupe Binding: 2/3 yard of 37098-10 Burnt Umber

NOTE: We will talk more in depth about fabric requirements next week.

As you can tell based on the amount of information and time put into this post, I feel very strongly that good planning going into a project will lead to a beautiful and successful end quilt. I hope you all will enjoy your week of planning and designing.

Next Wednesday we will be making a test block so that we know exactly how much fabric we will need for the paper piecing of the quilt.