Friday, February 22, 2019

The Jolly Bar Bon Bons Quilt




I just completed a fun, new quilt that I'd like to introduce you to today.


The free pattern is available from the The Fat Quarter Shop's Shortcut Quilt pattern collection.  

There's a helpful YouTube tutorial available for you to check out to get some extra information about the quilt if you need it, or maybe you'll just want to watch it because you enjoy watching The Fat Quarter Shop's video tutorials like I do! 









Did you notice the bold background fabric I chose?

It's a beautiful Moda Grunge called Kiwi.

The brighter green background was a little bit of a risk for me.

I tend to stick to more neutral background colors, but lately I've been trying to go a little crazier and experiment with different, brighter, bolder background fabrics.

And if you follow me, you know I'm a huge fan of Moda Grunge!

A few posts back, you'll see that I made the Maple Leaf Quilt, another pattern from The Fat Quarter Shop, with a purple Moda Grunge that I just love!











Don't think I didn't use any neutral fabrics in this quilt though!

I actually reversed what I normally do, and I used the neutral fabrics as more of a focus fabric in my blocks.

As you may have figured from the name of the pattern, this quilt has a Jolly Bar in the fabric requirements.

  A Jolly Bar of Zen Chic's Modern Colorbox Background fabric is what I used here to create the shell and the filling for my Bon Bons in the quilt.











A Jolly Bar is a precut portion of fabrics from a single fabric collection, which measure 5" x 10" that's only available from The Fat Quarter Shop.

There's a lot you can do with this size precut!

If you'd rather use scraps for this quilt, that's not a problem.

You'll just need to gather 36 - 5" x 10" rectangles and then start cutting!











As I was putting this quilt together, I was thinking that it would be a great time to pull out some really cool background fabrics, like some fun text prints, or some other print that you'd love to see as the star of this quilt!

It would also be a great place to use some of those large prints that you've never wanted to cut up into little pieces as a focus fabric, because the blocks in the quilt are pretty big.

In fact, it would make a great quilt for a beginner because the cutting and sewing is pretty simple and the fabric selection could certainly be quick if you just chose your background fabric and a Jolly Bar.











You've only got to choose two things to get started!

Choosing only two things sounds like a dream to me.

We're doing a remodel of our master bath and 
I did not realize how many choices we'd have to make.

That's what we were doing this afternoon, picking out some fixtures, so making a quilt with only two fabric selections sounds like a dream to me!











The fabric selection was quick and easy, but I did make my quilting a bit more complicated.

I took the opportunity to practice some ruler work on my new sewing machine and I did a different type of quilting each time I went around the quilt.

It was so much fun!

I really enjoyed quilting it and I learned a lot in the process too.

I like a quilt that gives me the freedom to quilt it anyway I'd like, and the Jolly Bar Bon Bons Quilt definitely fits that bill.












Traditional quilting, modern quilting, or even something in between, this quilt would look great no matter how you wanted to quilt it!

Well, I hope I've given you some creative ideas about how you can customize this quilt to your own tastes or needs.

It's a fun pattern that goes together quickly and I had a great time making it for the Jolly Bar Bon Bons Quilt Along.


Don't forget to take a look at the YouTube video and check out The Fat Quarter Shop's blog, The Jolly Jabber to see the other quilts that the other participants in the quilt along made to get some more great ideas!  




4 comments:

Lois Evensen said...

What pretty quilts and so much green just in time for St. Patrick's Day. Good luck with your bathroom remodels. We have done three of them in the past 15 years. All I can say is they are wonderful when they are finished! ;)

Joyful Quilter said...

Wow! what a difference reversing the light and dark make. Love the quilt.

Hildy said...

I love your quilt and that you reserved the background (color) and Jolly Bar (low volumes). Have fun picking out the things fro your bathroom remodeling and perhaps you show us some pictures.

Needled Mom said...

I really like this, Michele. I love the Grunge too, but that green is fabulous. The backing is wonderful - so unexpectedly happy!

Aren't the remodeling choices a nightmare? I am not jealous. I can definitely see why two choices is very appealing for you. We were doing two baths at the same time and I almost went crazy keeping them straight with all the choices. You WILL love it when it's done.