Spring has arrived in my neck of the woods and signs of new life are everywhere! I just love this time of year and before we know it it will be picnic season. The Wash Day quilt is the ideal size picnic quilt to make. So why not get a head start on things and get sewing!

For this quilt I used mainly thrifted fabrics and a few fabrics from my stash. I picked men’s shirts for the squares, a flat sheet for the backing and binding and solid colors to tie everything together.

Used clothes and linens make this quilt sustainable and will keep it out of the landfill. A loved one’s clothing and/or linens could also be used which would surely become a cherished and well loved memory quilt. 

I used 10 different button down shirts - plaids, stripes, flowers, dots - with more or less all of them in shades of blue. In addition I added four solid colors - pops of Robert Kaufman’s Kona Cotton in Mango, Riley Blake’s Confetti Cottons in Hot Pink, a solid blue from one of the shirts and Robert Kaufman’s Kona Cotton in White. I used white as the alternating color in between the prints/colors.

For the backing fabric I used a twin size bed sheet with navy, light blue and white stripes. This ties in nicely with the quilt top’s mostly blue shades.

I quilted a cross hatch pattern which works well with the squares.

I rounded the corners to give it a “picnic blanket” look.

I used the same fabric I used for the backing for the binding, as well as some of the orange and pink fabric.

The finished quilt feels like a fresh breeze on a warm summer day!

*** The Wash Day pattern is now available in my Etsy shop. Take a look here.

Finished size: approx 62 inches x 65 inches

I love using traditional quilt blocks in a fresh, new way. It’s amazing the difference certain colors or patterns can make to a specific design. Supersizing a quilt block is another way of changing the traditional look. You may wonder what I mean with supersizing? It means literally supersizing or enlarging a quilt block of say 12x12 inches to the size of your quilt. That’s what I’ve done with the Picnic for Two Quilt.
 
The block itself is called “Trip around the World” and is a classic and popular design among quilters, using same-size squares in a pattern where each new color revolves around the previous one.
 
I started mine with Robert Kaufman’s Kona cotton solid in Cayenne, followed by Bluebell, Chocolate, Cadet, Bison and Shell - all Kona cotton fabrics. I repeated Bluebell and Chocolate and ended with Cayenne in the corners, which draws your eye back to the center unit. 

For the back of the quilt I used Sunday Drive Prints by Pat Sloan for Moda in the colors True Blue and Natural. It repeats the red and blues from the top of the quilt. For the binding I chose a pretty red chevron design called Gathering by Jill Shaulis for Windham in the color Lipstick.

I machine quilted straight lines an inch apart to keep it simple, yet modern.

Now that the weather is warming up, this would be the perfect picnic quilt for two. Or use it as a play mat for the little ones while you sit in the shade of a tree and enjoy the beauty around you.

Dimensions: approximately 53” x 53” (134cm x 134cm), throw size