They had me at Betsy! When I saw the announcement for the Betsy Nine Patch Quilt-along from Bec at Sew Be, I knew I was in. Designed to be made over the year, I chose to work on it as a leader/ender and fill-in project to complete my quilt earlier than the slow, steady progress and I’m not mad about it. A classic design, favorite fabrics and simple sewing made it a great project for the past month.

My quilt is made with 2-1/2” squares, nine per block. The layout is twelve rows of twelve blocks. To begin the project, I cut out enough from the background fabric and Betsy prints to complete about half of the quilt and completed my cutting when I finished the first half. When piecing, I chose to make two blocks from each Betsy print to have a variety to begin forming the rows as I went. This gave me the opportunity to piece 2, 4, 6 or 8 blocks at a time without having to overthink things. I love seeing progress and adding the blocks randomly. It also helped me to have a mix of alternating blocks by doing one block with five feature fabric squares and the next block with four. A nine patch quilt can easily be quilted by strip piecing, but I chose the slow/steady method described in the sew-along of sewing one square at a time and enjoyed the process. It was fun to watch the blocks come together and add them row-by-row. By keeping a tray loaded with the next blocks’ squares next to my machine, I had them at hand and easily completed a few each time I sat down to sew.

Liberty of London fabrics are some of my favorite fabrics, with a deep love of the Betsy prints. I had a large number of colorway scraps, but not enough for a complete quilt. I purchase a fat eighth bundle to be able to complete this project and had fabric to spare. To complement the fabrics, I chose the Afternoon Sail Chambray from Art Gallery Fabrics’ Denim Collection and love the combination. One note. As I began piecing the blocks, I did not consider the definite lines in the warp/weft fibers. The first blocks have the lines running in several directions before I began piecing for a consistent directional look. It did not concern me enough to redo the original blocks. They give the quilt character.

I finished the quilt with edge-to-edge longarm quilting using the Fanfare pantograph, scaled to 8” to work well with the size of the blocks and prints. I love how the movement in the quilting meanders across the quilt without overshadowing the simplicity of the design and the beautiful fabrics.

For the back of the quilt I used another favorite fabric, Cottage Linen Closet in Rose by Brenda Riddle Designs for Moda Fabrics and purchased from Pink Chihuahua Fabrics. The muted lines add a soft touch to the backing while leaving the attention on the Betsy fabrics. There are other colors in this fabric line, but the Rose worked well with the chambray and picked up the highlights in the facing’s fabric.

I chose my favorite edging finish by going with a facing rather than binding. I began with 3-1/2” strips of Liberty Betsy from Duckadilly Fabrics in a soft blue print with deeper blues, light and medium rose to tie in with the backing fabric, green and a pop of gold metallic, folded and pressed in half with 6” squares folded and pressed in half diagonally to prepare the triangle corners. These were machine sewn with the triangles placed in the corner with the strips on top, raw edges to the outside of the quilt top. The strips were cut to start and end approximately 2” from the ends) to the front of the quilt, pressed away from the front and stitched at less than 1/4” to help the fabric fold easily to the backing.

After pressing the strips to the back and lightly tacked with applique glue, they were stitched down by hand with an invisible-ish slip stitch before turning the triangles to the back and stitching them down in the corners and on top of the facing strips. I love the clean lines the facing adds to the front of the quilt while adding a pop of fun with the fabric on the backing. You can find general instructions for a quilt facing on my blog.

QUILT DETAILS

The Betsy Nine Patch Quilt

Finished quilt measures 72 inches x 72 inches

144 quilt blocks made with nine 2-1/2” square patches in each block for a total of 1,296 patches

Quilt instructions for the project are from the Sew Be Blog.

Machine pieced - Machine quilted

Quilt started: March 2022

Quilt finished: April 2022

The feature fabrics are 28 colorways of Liberty of London Betsy Tana Lawn from my stash and Duckadilly Fabrics with Art Gallery Fabrics’ Afternoon Sail Chambray, Denim Collection from Piper Autumn Designs.

Quilted on my Bernina Q24 Longarm with Q-matic using Quilters Dream Bamboo Batting, Habandash Glide Thread in Linen and the Fanfare Pantograph from My Creative Stitches.

Thank you for your interest in my quilts and quilting and for scrolling through the photos.

Debbie

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