Look at this one for a few seconds and the blocks trade places. The framed diamonds step forward, the pieced squares fall back, and a white lattice appears across the whole quilt. There is no sashing anywhere in it. That grid is made of white wedges inside the blocks themselves, which is the kind of trick you only see once the top is together.
Two blocks alternate, both 12 1/2 inches unfinished. The A block is foundation paper pieced: sixty units built on a printed template, each one a 7 inch print square with a narrow white wedge taken out of two sides, trimmed to 6 1/2 inches and set four to a block. Those wedges carve the concave sides and leave a sharp point at every corner. The B block is a square in a square, a 6 1/8 inch center on point, framed with 1 7/8 inch strips and filled out with triangle units cut from 3 7/8 inch squares. Thirty blocks, six rows of five.
It comes from Robert Kaufman Fabrics, designed in house rather than commissioned, and dated 2015.
Pattern details
- Brand: Robert Kaufman
- Designer: Robert Kaufman Fabrics
- Finished size: 60" x 72"
- Size category: Throw
- Difficulty: Confident beginner
- Block: Square in a square
- Technique: Foundation paper piecing, on point setting
- Colorway: Shown in Navy, with a Pink colorstory on pages 7 and 8
- Fat quarter friendly: No
- Jelly roll friendly: No
- Layer cake friendly: No
- Charm pack friendly: No
The four no answers are worth saying out loud. Every cut here runs off width of fabric strips at 2 1/4, 1 7/8, 3 1/2 and 3 7/8 inches, and none of those line up with a precut. This one wants yardage.
Download the free pattern PDF. Eight pages, with the foundation template on page 6, which has to print at 100 percent.
Fabrics and palette that suit this pattern
This design needs a hard line between the background and everything else. The white has to stay white, because it is doing the job sashing would normally do. Put a print in that position and the lattice blurs, and the points go with it. The frames around the diamonds want two solids that read as flat color from across a room, and the ten fabric slots leave room for the four print squares to vary while the solids hold steady.
The original collection was Fabulous Foxes, out in 2015 and long gone, so there is no point chasing it. Five of the ten fabrics were Kona Cotton solids, and Kona is still made, so half the quilt is easy to replace. Our solids and fabric by the yard cover the background and the frames, and the 4 yards of backing come off the backing fabric widths.
Paper piecing brings its own short list. Sixty printed templates means a shorter stitch length and a bigger needle, so the paper tears away cleanly at the end. A ruler you trust for trimming matters more here than usual, because sixty units trimmed a whisker generously add up, and a fresh blade is what keeps those trims clean.
