Amanda of Jedi Craft Girl recently released her first quilt book: Playful Precut Quilts! Today, I’m delighted to be a stop on the blog tour with the Gingham Patches quilt pattern.

This was such a great quilt pattern- easy to do, a chain piecing dream, and easy to customize. As soon as I saw this pattern, I knew I wanted to do it in a Christmas theme- it was perfect for the yuletide spirit! Even if it is still September 😉

I made a few alterations, the most important in keeping all the cornerstones a match with the black block prints. With such a dark fabric, I think it was the right move! It connected all the blocks together really well.

Speaking of the fabric, I used 2 1/2″ precut strips (Playful PRECUTS, you know) of Merry Little Christmas by Deb Strain for Riley Blake Designs as the main block prints and got some Fat quarters of the plaids in the fabric line for the centers. For the rest, I used Texture in Slate and Pin Dot in Christmas all for Riley Blake Designs. I love love love the adorable prints in Merry Little Christmas, they are truly whimsical!

Uncharacteristically, I spent extra time making sure the star point prints were all going in the same direction. Shocking, I know! So unlike me. I knew this quilt would be prominently on display during the holidays so I figured the extra effort would be worth it. My quilts are usually tossed around on beds and couches so up/down goes out the window!

Quilting with plaids is really tricky if you cut straight off the bolt and don’t pay attention to the plaid lines. The same goes for gingham, or checks. For my block centers. I opened up the whole fat quarter and cut right along the plaid lines. That way, I could ensure as square of a pieces as I could.

I also wanted a candy stripe binding, but didn’t have any bias stripes in my fabric collection. I had a standard red/white stripe, so I cut my binding on the bias to get that candy cane effect.

When I was given the option of this exceptional quilting design, I knew it was the one! It has the same echoed loops as the little flowers in the black print.

The quilt finishes at a PERFECT throw size, my favorite 58″ x 72″.

My family and I are so thrilled with this quilt (the family is required to like all my projects, but I think this is legit approval ha ha!) and I’m genuinely grateful to Amanda for asking me to participate in this blog tour so I could make this beauty! Amanda has a blog FULL of great pattern tutorials, inspiring quilts, and fun projects. The Playful Precut Quilts book is another excellent source of great quilting ideas by Amanda, and I highly recommend it! Aside from the quilt patterns, there are tips, tricks, and explanations that will help beginner and seasoned quilters alike.

Follow along on the Blog Tour to see more of the quilts in her book!