Constellation quilt | WOMBAT QUILTS

Last week I managed to finish up my Constellation quilt, which is currently winging its way to its new home in Indiana.

I started this quilt a while ago, after I got my hands on some treasured pieces of Lizzy House’s Constellation line. I have been a big fan of Ms. Houses for a while now…she designs the most fun novelty fabric. I love her bright colour choices and graphic illustrations… and I do not just use them in my charity quilts for kids, I try to sneak Pearl Bracelets into nearly every quilt I make!

I loved the blues and touch of purple of this line and it was so easy to put this quilt together using just the Constellation fabric line, some Pearl Braceletss and a few supporting solids.

I paper pieced the six-inch cross blocks… you can find the free pattern here.

To quilt this baby up I just used my walking foot and followed the lines of the crosses. I love how the quilting echoes the crosses, while adding a nice grid pattern to the quilt.

I wanted some denser quilting on this quilt, as it is for my new nephew, Tobias…and I knew from the experience of his big brother’s quilt, that this quilt needed to be able to stand up to pretty constant washing and hardy wear and tear.

For the back of the quilt I used three different Lizzy House prints…two of which are from her recent Natural History range. These fabrics just worked perfectly with the front… and I could not resist sneaking this marvelous gem print into the quilt.

Now I must warn you this is only one of several Lizzy House quilts I have been working on. I am slightly addicted to Lizzy’s fabrics and am eagerly awaiting her new line, A lovely Hunt, in September… it has unicorns in it!

Quilt Details:

Name: Constellation Crosses
Pattern: Paper Pieced cross blocks
Fabric: Lizzy House Constellations
Finished size: 36 x 42 inches

In a moment of crazy at the end of last year I decided that I would not start any new projects in January or February this year. I have so many wips and unfinished quilt tops I thought I needed to do something to clear the backlog. This “resolution” saw me pulling out some old unfinished blocks this week and getting this quilt top done…

I actually started making these blocks in March of last year. I had made a 4 inch paper pieced version of this block for the PMQG medallion and then blew the pattern up to 6 1/2 inches to play with. There is a link on my original post to the free paper piecing pattern in two sizes (4 and 6 inch) in you are interested.

So this week I made a pile more blocks and this morning finally got them all wrangled into a top.

The quilt uses the wonderful Constellation range by designer Lizzy House. I love the fun bright fabrics that Lizzy makes and though I was late to discovering her fabrics, I have been hoarding and using them for a couple of years. I do not think there is a quilt I have made in the last year or so that has not had Pearl Bracelets in it somewhere.

This range is all about stars and fun Constellations, but you could easily use this pattern in any fabric range…the trick is to make sure you have a nice contrast in your blocks and that you embrace the light and dark fabrics from the range.

To really up the contrast with this top I also pulled in some solid white fabric as well as the white on white Pearl Bracelets. I also did not shy away from adding a touch of red/purple. One of the fabrics in the line had a touch of this colour and I thought I would embrace it…just a little. I used the design rule of three and added three blocks with the purple.

I just love how the quilt seems to sparkle and your eyes are forced to move around the top. Now all that is left for me to do is remove the paper and quilt this sucker up!