The Peace Garden Quilt is looking extra stunning in these Ruby Star Society fabrics, thanks to Breanna’s magic touch. Not only is she a gifted longarmer, but she’s also my trusted tech editor and pattern tester. She thoughtfully recorded her process as she stitched, and I’m so excited for you to see both her insights and her beautiful finish.
Here’s Breanna with all the details!
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Hi there, my name is Breanna Gaudaur and I am an avid quilter, pattern tester, tech editor and long arm quilter based in Ontario, Canada. I’ve been quilting since I was six years old, and it is still one of my favorite ways to spend time. When I’m not quilting you’ll find me busy at my day job or going on adventures to get photos of quilts in the wild.
Don’t threaten me with a good time! (And by ‘good time’ I obviously mean a fat-quarter friendly quilt pattern.) Because few things will make me as excited as an excuse to dive into my fat quarter stash and start a new project.
It’s a good thing I have a healthy fabric stash since the version of Peace Garden I decided to make calls for 30 fat quarters. Challenge accepted! I got a bit of a head start on my fabric pull by using a bundle of twelve prints from the Ruby Star Society Picture Book collection as my foundation. From there, I went through my shelf pulling all the options that I thought would coordinate well with those prints.
My goal was to end up with ten colour groupings, with a light, medium and dark fat quarter in each group. This is what Erin did for the cover version, and I love the uniformity and structure the colour groupings provide. I knew this would be especially important when adding the chaos of print fabrics to the mix. Finding the right fabrics to create those ten colour groupings proved to be tricky, but after spending lots of time going back and forth and moving things around I finally came up with a pull I was confident about.
I know some people like to work on one block at a time, but I like to be all in from the start of a project. Which means I had LOTS of trimming to do all at once. When using a large mat for trimming HSTs I like to make sure I’m using the whole mat evenly rather than wearing out one corner. And I’m not going to lie, I also just really enjoy seeing the scraps that are left behind as I work my way around the mat.
As soon as my HSTs were all trimmed the blocks came together really quickly. It took me a few tries to come up with a layout that I was happy with, as the blue blocks tend to stand out and I was struggling to balance where they were placed. Now that the quilt is finished I love seeing how those darker blocks work to keep your eyes moving around the quilt.
I really love the process of choosing a pantograph, and I knew that Triplet by Ambling Vines would be perfect for my Peace Garden quilt for a few different reasons. I love that it gives a nod to the floral design of the quilt, it has just enough curvy elements to soften all the straight lines in the blocks, and it provides consistent geometric texture. It’s also just a really fun pantograph to stitch out! I usually lean towards neutral colours when it comes to thread choices, but I went a little off-script with a bright pink thread, and I’m so glad I did. I especially love how it stands out on some of the darker blue fabrics in the quilt.
Because of how I cut my fabric I ended up with a long strip left over from each of the fat quarters, which lended itself perfectly to a scrappy binding. (And if you’re thinking it doesn’t look like there’s enough binding in this photo you would absolutely be correct. I definitely miscalculated my first time around, but was able to correct that before I started attaching it to the quilt. Whoops!)
I feel like I’ve been in a bit of a photo shoot location slump recently, but a friend introduced me to a butterfly garden behind a local elementary school as a potential location, and it worked so perfectly for my Peace Garden quilt. We will definitely be heading back for more quilt photos in the future!
The Details:
Pattern: Peace Garden Quilt by The Blanket Statement
Fabric: Assorted prints from Ruby Star Society Picture Book, Add it Up, Sugar, Spark, Starry, Purl, and Speckled
Backing: Ruby Star Society Wideback Speckled in Berry
Pantograph: Triplet by Ambling Vines
Pieced and Quilted by: Breanna Gaudaur of Rose Ivy Quilts
