Sweet Pea Quilt Pattern

I have a new pattern available!  You can find the Sweet Pea pattern here.

The inspiration for this quilt came in a most unexpected place—a bouquet of sweet peas from the farmers’ market.

I love farmers’ market flowers!  Especially late in the summer when they are full of dahlias.  These sweet peas were just so sweet, and I brought a bouquet home.  The following week, I went back and got more.

As I stared at them, I started to think about quilting.  I’m not crazy about floral fabrics.  Weird, for someone who loves flowers so much, but I just don’t like floral fabric.  I suppose it’s because of my fondness for tone on tone fabrics.   Floral doesn’t really lend itself to tone on tone.

Anyway.  I stared at these flowers.  And stared some more.  And a quilt palette materialized.  Not just pink and purple.  All the pinks.  All the purples.  Purple so dark it was nearly black.  Delicate pale pink.  Bright fuchsia.  White.  Maroon.  And red.  Red made me hesitate to use this palette.  I don’t like red.

I reminded myself it’s good to get out of my comfort zone.  I couldn’t have called the quilt Sweet Pea, if I left out the red.  I pulled all the fabrics I had that were the right colors, and then bought a bunch more. 

I started with the baby size version of this quilt which measures 42” by 50” and as I started to think about writing it as a pattern, I wanted to also make a throw size, couch size lap quilt which measures 54” by 60”.

Suddenly I had twice as many quilts to make and twice as much fabric to buy.  Seriously, it’s a problem.  A very special sort of addiction problem.  BUT!  Making a larger version of the quilt meant two things.

One, a more versatile quilt pattern.  I am new to writing my own patterns.  And I have a long way to go when it comes to marketing quilt patterns.  But it seems like a no brainer to me that a two-for-one pattern will sell better than just a baby quilt. 

Two, I now get to keep a quilt made from this color palette that I have come to love so much!  I’m going to have to be careful to not decide I NEED a version of every pattern I make.  Really, it’s an addiction. 

Also, I am going to have to convince Scout that is not HER quilt, it’s MY quilt.

I think this pattern is versatile in colors other than the Sweet Pea palette as well.  Here is a sneak peak of a baby quilt in this pattern but other colors.  Head on over to my pattern shop to see the pattern and to see the full baby quilt of the sneak peak, as well as a third color combo!

I also made Sweet Pea in Christmas fabric, partly because I had lots of Christmas fabric, and partly because I wanted to have a photo for my Etsy listing that showed borders in something other than low volume black on white.

I think my favorite thing about Sweet Pea is the checkerboard middle border.

And, before I go, a #quiltsinthewild shot of Sweet Pea as well.

You can find the Sweet Pea Quilt pattern right HERE.