I received some beautiful fabric in the mail this week – The Birds and the Bees by designer Tula Pink. This fabric was sent to me generously by one of my sponsors, Westwood Acres (you can see all their The Birds and the Bees bundles here). Amanda asked if I wanted to play around with some of this new line and I didn’t really have to think very long before saying yes!

From the first time I saw this fabric online, I thought it would be perfect for a string quilt. I decided for a bit of a less traditional string quilt however. Yesterday I started making blocks that had random amounts of strings on them and I thought I would share a little tutorial for how I made these blocks. They look like butterfly wings to me so….here is my Butterfly Strands Quilt Block tutorial!

Cutting Directions
Background – Cut squares from your background fabric. These can be any size, as long as you are consistent for all your blocks. We will be trimming the blocks down a bit to square them up, so cut a bit larger than you’d like your final block. I cut mine to 8.5″ x 8.5″ and squared to 8.25″ x 8.25″.

Strings/Strips – Cut random size strips from your fabric, measuring from 1.5″ to 2.25″.

Block Assembly

1. Take your background square and cut a 45 degree angle (diagonal) from the square, using either the 45 degree line on your cutting mat or your quilting ruler. Each block should have the diagonal cut in a slightly different location, cutting more off some blocks and less off other blocks.

This is what your block should now look like:

2. Layout your stripes for your block. Don’t trim these yet, just get an idea of what colors you want to use for your block.

3. Right sides together, sew your first strip to the 45 degree diagonal of your background fabric.

Press your seams.

4. Using your quilting ruler, trim the ends of your strip.

5. Repeat with your remaining strips.

6. Square your block. As I said in the cutting directions, I squared my blocks to 8.25″ x 8.25″.

You’re done! Layout your blocks as below by alternating the direction of the string sections.

I’m so excited to share my latest quilt with you, Loulouthi Crosses. This quilt is made up entirely of Greek Cross blocks from the Summer Sampler Series. I love that you can take one unsuspecting little quilt block and make such an interesting quilt from it.

For the quilt front, I used about a fat quarter of each of Anna Maria Horner’s Loulouthi fabric in the Isabela palette. I used Moda’s Bella Solids Stone for the sashing. Not to be confused with Kona Stone. Which I did confuse when reordering after I ran out. Twice. That was not a cheap mistake.

I am pretty excited about the back. Do you have any fabric that you bought a long time ago with no immediate intention of using, but just loved too much to pass it by? That was me with the Anna Maria Horner Drawing Room fabric you see at the bottom of the back. Originally I thought I would wrap canvas with it and hang it on the wall, but my wall has been filled with other handmade items. So it sat, waiting for the right project. I just love that AMH’s fabric collections continue to coordinate.

The top fabric on the back is an out of print Amy Butler piece, Pink Coriander. I had stocked up on that awhile back and I think I’m finally down to my last yard.

The binding is another Anna Maria Horner fabric, this time from her Good Folks line. That one I am almost out of, and boy will I be sad when I use my last piece.

I quilted this in a free motion meandering style. I had some tension problems on the back that I discovered once I was finished that required me to spend a lot of time with the seam ripper. I’m hoping some of you can relate.

All in all, I really love how this one turned out. It measures 48″ x 60″ and is listed in the shop!

When I was working on my tutorial for the Greek Cross block last week, I kept thinking how great this block would be for an entire quilt. And clearly I am not alone, a few people mentioned in the comments of my last post that they are working on quilts made entirely of this block as well.

I pulled out my Loulouthi fabric, paired it with Kona StoneBella Stone (Not the same thing! …learned the hard way after reordering), and set to work. I am really loving the results.

I hope this inspires you, even if you aren’t involved in the Summer Sampler Series, to look at the individual blocks we are creating and see how they would work in repetition for an entire quilt.

Today is my second day of the week to select the “Expert Picks” for Shruti’s FQS Bella Parade. Today’s color is Lime. I like this color, it was fun to match fabrics and really packs a punch.

For coordinating solids, I selected Magenta, Caribbean, Etchings Slate. Doesn’t it remind you of being out on the beach?

For a few prints that coordinated with Lime, I selected Isabelle Christmas Blue Candy Stripe (really like this one), Kaffe Classics Red Roman Glass, and Sanctuary Seafoam Orchid Feng Shui.

I have reacquainted myself with my sewing machine today and spent some of the morning working on my DS Quilts blocks. Hopefully I will have more to show you later this week!