Same quilt, forty prints instead of twenty.
Alder is the easiest quilt in our strip and charm family, and this is the version we made in Blossom Breeze: pinks, aquas, teals and navy instead of the greens and soft neutrals of the Morning Mist original. The quilt is identical, 62 1/2 by 67 1/2 inches, five units across and fifteen rows down, with one cut in the whole thing and that cut made after the sewing.
What changes is the box it comes out of. Blossom Breeze has forty prints to Morning Mist's twenty, so in a top of 152 strips each print turns up about four times instead of eight. The quilt reads scrappier, the repeats are harder to find, and the white squares have more work to do holding it all apart.
Download the Alder pattern in Blossom Breeze
Eleven pages, free to print, use and teach from. Fabric list, the one cut, the unit, the rows, the layout, the binding and five sizes, all worked out for this collection.
Download the free Alder quilt pattern PDF, Blossom Breeze version
Everything you need to make this quilt
Blossom Breeze + White Supreme Bundle 284pcs
200 Precut Fabric Strips 2.5" x 10" + 84 Squares 5"
What is in the quilt
Five packs of mini strips, 2 1/2 by 10 inches, forty to a pack. The top takes 152 and the binding takes 38 more out of the same packs, which leaves 10 in the bag. Two packs of 5 inch white charm squares, 42 to a pack, of which the top takes 75.
Backing is 2 1/8 yards of 108 inch wide fabric, 70 1/2 by 75 1/2 inches with no seam, and the batting is cut to match. Our guide to quilt backing covers the options.
Why this one is the easy brother
Alder lays the unit down, 12 1/2 inches wide and 4 1/2 tall, with the four strips running vertically and the white square beside them. Every row is turned the opposite way to the one above it, so inside a row a white square always meets a bar of prints and there is nothing to line up at all. That leaves 56 points to match in the whole quilt, which is why we send beginners here first.
If you want the same unit doing more work, Aspen keeps the rows in phase and asks for 348 matches, and Blackthorn staggers them into brickwork at 90.
Choosing fabrics for it
The rule has not changed with the collection: the squares have to be far lighter or far darker than every print you put beside them. With forty prints in play that is easier, not harder, because no single print has to carry a whole row. Sort the strips into two piles by value before you start and use the piles to spread the darks across the quilt.
Our precut mini strips and charm squares are where to look if you would rather build it from something else.
More quilts like this one are in our free quilt patterns.
