Spinning Top Quilt - the pink ombre version

The first pattern in the Bar Quilts Collection is now available in my shop!

Spinning Top is a big block quilt, with a modern take on a traditional block. This pattern is a beginner-friendly, quick and easy sew, and comes in throw, baby and pillow sizes.

I made the throw size in this lovely ombre array of pink Robert Kaufman Kona solids. It was a lot of fun to put together, and I've caught myself a few times looking through my stash for other fabric combinations I could use to make more samples.

The Bar Quilts series

The Spinning Top quilt pattern is one of four quilt patterns in the Bar Quilts series that is being released this year. They are all bold, striped patterns that are easy to make and  a quick, satisfying project for the limited sewing time a lot of us have these days.

You can find all four patterns here:

Raise the Bar
Spinning Top
Staccato
Bar Code (coming August 2021)

Not a fan of square throws? Check out this tutorial for turning the square Bar Quilts patterns into a rectangular throw or a twin size quilt.

Ombre colour way

I love Robert Kaufman Kona solids for the sheer number of colours that are available, so finding enough colours close enough together to make an ombre bundle was easy. For this quilt I chose 5 pinks: Punch, Melon, Salmon, Peach and Ice Peach. 

I have a limited number of these ombre fabric bundles available in my shop.

For the background I chose my favourite Kona colour, Windsor. There's just something about that dark, slightly slate-y blue that draws me to it every time. And it really makes the pinks pop.

Big block quilt

I've always loved big block quilts - the kind that use a single quilt block and blow it up to full quilt size. They make a bold statement and you can really show off the block and play with colour options that might get lost otherwise. They also tend to be quicker projects, which, let's be honest, is quite nice sometimes. And they're easy to scale up and down to whatever size you need.

Multiple Sizes included

I've included 3 sizes in the quilt pattern, to go from a pillow or wall hanging to a baby quilt up to a large throw. Adding extra borders at the top and bottom will turn the throw size into a twin bed quilt as well.

For this ombre sample I made the throw size. It's the perfect size to really show off the colours, and would work well for large prints, too.

Quilting

I quilted this one on my own domestic sewing machine (a Bernina aurora 440 QE) with simple straight lines using my walking foot. I thought about doing an all-over longarm design, but I really wanted the pink to show as the main element without distraction. I usually like to use a thread colour that matches the background and doesn't distract from the main design element at the same time, but that was going to be tricky to do with the dark background and bright stripes with an all-over pantograph. So instead, I opted to do straight horizontal lines and changed thread colour when I went over the pink stripes.