Flower Garden Strip Quilt

Here's a quick and easy idea for using some of those beautiful large panels that have several coordinating fabrics like these from Free Spirit Fabrics.

We made a simple strip quilt with the panel centered. Here's how:

First, measure the panel. Ours was approximately 21" X 33". We trimmed it to 20-1/2" X 32-1/2". We chose 20-1/2" because we want to use the full width of the strips as our finished quilt width; and by adding 10" strips on each side of the panel, it will come out to 40" finished. We chose 32-1/2" because it's divisible by 2 (our finished strip size) plus the seam allowances.

Next we cut (22) 2-1/2" strips from the coordinating fabrics.

Then we chose 8 strips from the pile for the sides of our panel.

We laid them out and stitched them together lengthwise. (the photo below show 4 strips, but we actually used 8). Then we squared up the ends and cut the strip set in half down the middle, stacked the 2 sets as shown and sewed them together.

Finally, we cut the new strip set (approximately 21" X 32-1/2") in half down the middle and sewed one set to each side of the panel. All that was left was to sew the remaining 14 strips to the top and bottom and then quilt and bind!

This will be perfect out by the garden with a good book and an afternoon breeze!

We have these already bundled in 1/2 yard cuts with a free panel  - chose either the blue or the orange colorway!