Drunkard's Path April Challenge

The products featured in this post were given to me by Island Batik and their industry sponsors. 

I am hosting a fabric giveaway to go along with the release of the Circle Dance quilt pattern! Be sure to read to the bottom of this post and enter to win!

For April, our Ambassador's challenge was to make a lap quilt (or larger!) quilt using the Drunkard's Path block. This meant curved piecing! Yikes! I had tried curved piecing several times over the years, but always gave up because it was too time consuming and just not enjoyable to me. I was determined this time to finally conquer it and set out to find the best method to achieve this. After practicing with the usual methods, I made a realization that made everything fall into place (and made curved piecing seem nearly as easy as regular piecing)! More on that later...

My first decision was to use the fabric from the Sunlit Garden fabric collection that I had left over from the February challenge. Sunlit Garden was designed by Jerry Khiev for Curlique Creations. I wanted a lot of contrast within the bocks and Sunlit Garden provided just that!

My second decision was to use the Drunkard's Path dies from Accuquilt. I used two sizes (shown below). The larger one is Accuquilt Die #55034, which makes a 7" finished block. The smaller one is Accuquilt Die #55070, which make a 3.5" finished block. These dies made cutting the pieces a breeze and insured accuracy in all my pieces. I incorporated both sizes into my design, which worked out pretty well.

These are the fabric pieces cut from each size die:

Then I started Piecing! Below are my "must haves" for curved piecing - As always, my go-to piecing duo is Aurifil 50 wt thread in Dove Gray (#2600) and a Schmetz Microtex needle, size 12. In addition, I used a Sewline Fabric Glue Pen and a bamboo stiletto, both of which were invaluable for the curved piecing.

Here is a close up of my piecing. Notice how there are no pins along the edge? I found the piecing went much faster by using the fabric glue pens, rather than all that pinning. Please see my tutorial Curved Piecing Made Easy for all the details!

Here are both the large and small completed blocks. I joined four small blocks to make 7" blocks so they would match the 7" larger blocks.

Here is one completed section. I love how the smaller blocks fit into the larger blocks!

After sewing the sections together, it was time to iron the quilt top. I really love using my Oliso TG1600 Pro Iron because you can leave it on top the the quilt! With a quilt top covering the whole ironing board, there is usually no place to sit the iron, the Oliso handles that issue perfectly!

Here is the completed top before quilting. My cat Bright Eyes had to get in on the act!

Then it was time to load the top on my Bernina Longarm and quilt! I used my favorite batting, Hobbs 80/20 for the batting. This is my go-to batting because it has just the perfect amount of loft, minimal shrinkage and gives the quilt a lovely drape.

Although its hard to see here, I quilted Circle Dance using the Cassava Pantograph from Urban Elementz.

Circle Dance is a fun pattern, especially if you are up to the challenge of some curved piecing! If you are still a bit nervous about giving curved piecing a try, take a look at my tutorial Curved Piecing Made Easy, you may find its not as daunting as you once thought!

Circle Dance is available as either a PDF instant download or as a printed pattern. 

Quilt Info:

Size: 63" X 63"

Fabric: Sunlit Garden (designed by Jerry Khiev for Curlique Creations) from Island Batik by Lumin Fabrics.

Batting: Hobbs Heirloom Premium Cotton.

Thread: Auriful 50 wt cotton.

Needles: Schmetz Microtex size 1

Now for the fabric giveaway!

I am hosting a fabric giveaway to go along with the release of the Circle Dance quilt pattern! Enter your email address below to enter to win a Sunlit Garden fabric stack!