Today we’ve got a breath of fresh air! Erin Biggers from Crafty Biggers has graced us with her presence today & I’m so excited. She’s been a relentless pattern tester for me from day 1 & I love working with her. She has a fabulous blog that you absolutely don’t want to miss out on, so when you’re finished reading this post, make sure you hop on over there and check it out! Today, she’s going to show you how she hacked my Crossroads pattern to include differently colored crosses. When she was first testing this pattern, she asked if she could do the crosses in different fabrics, I responded with a hesitant, “yes…but you’re crazy!” I’ve now learned not to doubt this girl—if she sets her mind to it—it’ll get done in the most fabulous way possible! Without further ado, I’m going to hand this post over to Erin!
Let me Introduce Myself…
Hi! I’m Erin and I write a blog over at Crafty Biggers. I’m a mama that loves to sew, craft and basically spray paint anything and everything around me.
I started sewing when I was about 9 and I have been teaching myself to sew ever since. The one thing I always wanted to learn was quilting and I decided that this was the year.
I saw a tester call for Rachel’s amazing Building Blocks Baby Quilt and I decided to take the leap. It was my first attempt at doing a quilt correctly and I was so excited when it actually turned out.
After that I tried the Head In The Clouds Baby Quilt
And then the Burst Throw Quilt. This one I will honestly say was the most challenging with getting everything to line up correctly.
I gained so much confidence and knowledge with each quilt that I did. Rachel was so helpful throughout the entire process and the instructions were so simple for even a beginner like me to turn out beautiful quilts.
The next tester call was for the Crossroads Quilt. Rachel posted that she needed twin size testers and I decided to agree without even considering the amount of work a bed size quilt actually was. On top of it I had the stellar idea to use 4 different fabrics for my crosses.
How to use More than One Fabric for the Crosses
While I am in love with the outcome, it was a little bit more of a process. To start, I used about a yard of each fabric. Because you have to get specific widths out of the fabric it will use a little more to use different fabrics. You will also want to play close attention to the direction of your design on the fabric.
Since I was going with a running pattern with this particular quilt it was important to do the rows one at a time and pay attention to the pattern. I basically started with labeling the fabrics 1-4 and rotating the pattern. By using 4 fabrics the design started making a diagonal pattern down the quilt. I was able to check my work by making sure the same 2 fabrics alternated on each diagonal row.
Each of the 4 fabrics created 8 complete crosses. 2 of the fabrics created 4 partial crosses and 2 of them created 5 partial crosses.
If you would like to copy this design, or even go a step farther and use a few more fabrics Rachel has created a downloadable template for each of the 3 sizes. You can color them in and plan out your fabrics to make this quilt as scrappy as you want. To download your template, just click on the size you’re working on, print, and color!
Isn’t Erin just amazing? Her fourth quilt ever & she’s already pushing herself and seeing just what she’s capable of—I love it. I hope that this was a helpful tutorial for those of you who are hoping to achieve the same look on your Crossroads quilt—it really is a fun little pattern hack, it just takes patience and a little bit of planning. If you still need to pick up your copy of Crossroads, hop on over to my shop and get an instant download. I’d love to hear what you think about this version of the quilt in the comments below & don’t forget to hop on over to Erin’s site: Crafty Biggers and take a look around!
Until next time, Happy sewing!
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LOVE those quilts! One day I will make another quilt. One day!
Thanks so much Karly! It’s a great pattern to keep in mind for your next project. 🙂