Papillon « modafabrics

45″ x 66″

Pat Sloan here! If we are just meeting… I’m the host of American Patchwork & Quilting Radio, a Moda fabric designer, an author, lecturer, and teacher. You can find all I do at my site patsloan.com. Be sure to sign up for my email newsletter and join me daily at my blog for quilt chat!

I’m delighted to be here to share my quilt, “Coins in the Fountain”. The name is a play on the honey bun being cut into stacked “coins,” coins I’d throw into a fabulous fountain in Paris. If I were in Paris, but I’m in Virginia where I am practicing how to say “Papillon’ with a French Accent…wink!

There is nothing I like better than being able to make a fast quilt with amazing fabrics. I love to let the fabrics do the talking. I started with a delicious “Papillon” honeybun and I added two fabrics to the mix. One is a beautiful butterfly print from the “Papillon” line. The other fabric I selected is a medium blue “Cross Weaves Woven” from Moda. I love the cross weaves as they have a slight texture and there is no right or wrong side to them.

Once you pick the fabrics you are good to go on this journey to Paris with me… now to find the best fountain….mmmm

•    Honey bun of Papillon by 3 Sisters
•    22″ of blue Cross Weaves Wovens
•    21″ x 67″ of Butterfly fabric from Papillon line
•    3 yds backing

TIP – I got this tip from my friend Kimberly Einmo, take a sticky roller and run it over both sides of your honeybun to remove the lint .. it works perfectly! Now unroll your Honey bun…

The honeybuns and jelly roll are usually rolled by color. I want to mix up the colors for sewing them together into coin strips.

Instead of sorting the strips ahead of time into sewing order, I just separate the colors to piles next to my sewing machine. Often there will be more of one color than another. As I sew I judge when to skip over the smaller pile so they are spaced out more.

Tip 1 – Be sure your precut ‘points’ are even as they feed under the needle. Mine are even under the foot and I am adjusting them as I sew.

Tip 2 – I sewed 10 strips together at a time. To avoid them ‘warping’ to one side, I alternated the ends I sewed from.

I found a 10 strip unit was easiest to handle. After you have those sewn, sew two units of 10″ to each other. Or move onto sub-cutting.

There are 66 strips sewn to make one unit. I left a few unsewn so that I was able to vary color if I need to when I get to sewing the long unit.

• Sub-cut the strips into 7.5″ units.
• Sew 66 ‘coins’ to make a strip panel

Make 3 coin units of 66 strips.

You can see how my colors are varied… and there were not as many red fabrics in this collection, so I scattered them about.

Now onto your beautiful wide strip! I am working with an ‘unseamed’ strip. The butterflies are also directional on the length, so it worked perfect for this quilt. If you select a fabric that is directional the other way, you will need to sew a seam to make the needed length.

Cut 2 wide strips 10.5″ x 66.5″

•    Now cut 7 blue strips 1.5″ x width of fabric.
•    Sew those all together end to end.
•    Cut 4 units 66.5″ long.
•    Sew the blue strips to each side of the butterfly fabric
•    Sew the top alternating coins and butterflies
•    The rest of the blue weave was used for binding.