Brickwork in forty prints.
This is the Blossom Breeze version of Blackthorn, the largest quilt in our strip and charm family at 75 by 85 1/2 inches. Six units across, nineteen rows down, one unit turned two ways, and ninety points to match in the whole quilt.
The original is Morning Mist, twenty greens that make the brick field read quietly. Blossom Breeze puts forty prints into the same 228 strips, which means about seven of each print across a quilt this size and a top that reads as proper scrappy work. The white blocks stay exactly where they were, nine inches wide, stepping past each other row by row.
Download the Blackthorn pattern in Blossom Breeze
Eleven pages, free to print, use and teach from. The fabric list, the cutting, the two rows, the assembly, the binding, and the same quilt in five sizes from baby to queen.
Download the free Blackthorn quilt pattern PDF, Blossom Breeze version
Everything you need to make this quilt
Blossom Breeze + White Supreme Bundle 406pcs
280 Precut Fabric Strips 2.5" x 10" + 126 Squares 5"
What this size asks for
Seven packs of mini strips, forty to a pack. The top takes 228 of them and the binding takes 44 more from what is left, with 8 over. Three packs of 5 inch white charm squares, 42 to a pack, of which the top takes 114.
That is more fabric than the other six in the family, because this is the only one of them that covers a double bed. Backing is 2 5/8 yards of 108 inch wide fabric for 83 by 93 1/2 inches with no seam down the middle, and our backing guide explains why the wide stuff earns its price at this size.
Ninety points, not five hundred and twenty two
Inside a row there is nothing to match, because the seams inside a unit run in the same direction as the seam joining two units and never cross it. The only places anything has to meet are the ends of the units on the seams between rows: five on each seam, eighteen seams, ninety in the quilt.
Lay the same quilt out with every unit facing the same way and that number goes to five hundred and twenty two. The alternation is not a styling choice. It is what removes four hundred and thirty two match points from an afternoon.
Building it from your own fabrics
Any collection works if the squares are far lighter or far darker than every print. With forty prints you have more room to spread repeats than with twenty, and on a quilt this big that matters: lay the units on a wall and move them until the halves of a strip set are far apart and no two matching prints touch. Our mini strips and charm squares are the place to start.
If this is more quilt than you want, Alder is the same unit at throw size with 56 points to match.
There are more of these in our free quilt patterns.
