pinwheels galore quilt – Monday Morning Designs

In the fall of 2022, I found myself (once again) making another quilt for my bed to use up leftover fabric. Since I’d already made a queen size on point scrappy quilt, I thought it was time to make one using my own pattern.

I had a variety of beautiful fabrics to use so I decided on Pinwheels Galore because 1. I love to sew pinwheels 2. the pinwheels are on the larger size so I knew they’d showcase all the lovely, vibrant colors.

Pinwheels Galor e is an easy, 10″ square friendly pattern. Just make pinwheels, strip piece the bars for sashing and voilà, you’ve got yourself a quilt. The pattern is a PDF download and four sizes are available: baby, throw, twin and queen.

To start, I chose the most colorful fabrics I had enough of and began making HST for the pinwheel blocks. Fabrics included: Art Gallery Elements and Matchmade by Pat Bravo of Art Gallery Fabrics, Moda Rustic Weave and Grunge, Bedrock by Windham Fabrics and Blossom by Riley Blake.

Here’s a look at some HST before creating the pinwheels.

I needed 72 pinwheels which works out to 288 HST. That’s a lot! I made sure of an even balance between lights, darks and colorways.

Because of the sheer number of HST needed, chain piecing came in very handy.

Here’s a look at some pinwheel blocks…

After finishing all the pinwheels, it was time to start the sashing. I’d designed the pattern to include strip piecing, so with that there’s chain piecing, too. I can’t say enough about how easy this pattern is, and fast!

While working on this quilt I completed other projects, took breaks, etc. Start to finish time was several months which was intended as I was in no hurry. I had everything sewn together in April 2023.

Here it is after trimming threads on the back; an annoying task and time consuming, but completely necessary. 😉

In August, I sent it off for longarming. For the quilting pattern, I chose Euphoria by Urban Elementz. I love how it turned out! Here it is on the cutting table for trimming off excess batting and backing.

I had made the binding long before I sent out the quilt. I was glad of that because it was ready to go once I got the quilt back. I used different colors of Blossom by Riley Blake. While it’s one of my favorite collections because of the small print and variety of colors, it frays a lot. That said, it took me quite a while to trim the binding edge before basting it down for machine sewing.

Lastly, here’s my finished quilt…

For backing, I used a wide width due to the amount needed. The fabric here is Lava Lamps by Whistler Studio. I love that every color on the back is seen on the front.

For this photo I added pillows I made but keep elsewhere in my home. I thought they looked cute so I included them. 😉