King David’s Crown quilt pattern in Cali & Co. fabric, made by That Crafty Cara (Cara Brooke) for Fat Quarter Shop

King David’s Crown Quilt, a new free pattern from Fat Quarter Shop

March 11, 2025March 14, 20255 Comments

It’s pattern release day for the King David’s Crown quilt, so I can finally show you this beautiful project in its entirety!

The Pattern

Since this pattern is part of Fat Quarter Shop’s “Classic and Vintage” series, the requirement was to make just one of the blocks, but when I saw this pattern I really liked how unique it was compared to the quilt blocks that I normally make, so I decided to make the entire quilt.

TIP: Not gonna lie, I had a hard time with not cutting off my points on this quilt. I realized after a few blocks that you want to prioritize getting the skinny tips to match up and not worry about the wider ends of the tips because those will get trimmed and won’t matter. Prioritze the skinnier tips of the wedges when you’re doing your cutting and piecing on this pattern; it makes a huge difference.

The Fabric

Corey Yoder’s fabric “Cali & Co.” had just come out and I decided to use this quilt as an opportunity to indulge my desire to make something with the beautiful multicolored flower print (SKU# 29190-11) in that collection. Unfortunately, when I tried mocking up the pattern with the multicolored flower print, I just couldn’t come up with a fabric combination that worked for me, so I pivoted to using the cherries print (SKU# 29194-11) as my main background and went with the blues and flamingo “reds” in the hopes for a subtly patriotic color scheme that I could display in the summer months.

ANOTHER TIP: I did figure out a way to sneak in as much of that multicolored flower print as I could, though—I opted to use it as the backing of the quilt. I realized, years ago, that if you use your most favorite print of a fabric collection for a quilt’s backing, you’ll end up with a ton of it leftover for your scrap bins (to then use in future scrap quilts) because you’ll have to trim off the requisite additional four inches on each side that you need to include for quilting. No more ugly fabrics for quilt backings here! I’m looking forward to sneaking in more of this beautiful print into future quilts! It’s just so pretty.

Cali & Co. fabric used in That Crafty Cara's (Cara Brooke) King David's Crown quilt for the Fat Quarter Shop

My plan is to use one of the darker blue fabrics in the Cali & Co. collection for the binding. I just love the light and airy feel of the fabrics in this quilt!

Blue fabrics from the Cali & Co. fabric collection by Corey Yoder for Moda Fabrics.

The Quilting

So, um, the quilting…isn’t finished. I have quilted in my foundational lines and I really thought about doing fast stipple quilting to just get this done on time, but I happened to see a really perfect quilting stencil design and fell in love with the idea of using it for quilting this up. Problem was, it took forever for the stencil to arrive in the mail and then it became apparent, very quickly, that I was going to have to practice a bit before executing my plan.

Quilting stencil atop the King David’s Crown quilt pattern in Cali & Co. fabric, made by That Crafty Cara (Cara Brooke) for Fat Quarter Shop

I don’t quilt as confidently as I piece, so there’s been a noticeable gap in my skills, and I’ve avoided quilting for a while. Nevertheless, I think it’s time to address this disparity and start legitimately working on upping my quilting skills, so I’m planning to take my time with quilting this beautiful quilt so that I can be proud of it when it’s done.

Final Thoughts

I really, really like this pattern and have already started mocking it up in other color palettes in the hopes that I can make another one. I think it’d look really great in a red-and-green color palette, don’t you?

The pattern is available for free on Fat Quarter Shop’s website, and they’ve also assembled a kit, featuring French General’s “Sacre Bleu” fabric collection, for maximum ease in getting started on this fun little pattern.

Thank you to all the new readers who are popping through to read this post! If you’d like to automatically receive more of my posts about quilty goodness, please subscribe to my blog on WordPress by clicking here, or sign up for my mailing list by clicking on the “Subscribe” button in the sidebar!

Thank you, Fat Quarter Shop, for inviting me to sew along with you on the King David’s Crown quilt! This quilt is going to be a lovely addition to my summer quilt collection! (Quesnel thinks it’s great, too!)

More Free Quilt Patterns from the Fat Quarter Shop:

This post contains affiliate links. Fat Quarter Shop also provided me with some of the fabrics and the Creative Grids Starburst ruler in exchange for me sewing up the pattern.

Quilting the Fresh Cut Pines quilt

November 15, 2021November 13, 2021Leave a comment

Alright, then, crafty friends, we’re at the end of the first week of reinstituting crafty goals and WOW did I get stuff done this week. All hail the power of setting goals!

I had to rip and re-sew on the top border of the Fresh Cut Pines quilt because I originally sewed it on upside down, and then it needed one more solid border all the way around. I basted the quilt sandwich on Tuesday, and would have started quilting it too, but the power went out at my kids’ school and I had to go pick them up and deal with the aftermath of all that.

So I started quilting it Thursday while my kids baked and giggled downstairs, and it was a great, warm and fuzzy kind of day. I’m shaking my head over how fast this quilting is going now that I finally just started doing it. You ever just psych yourself out about even starting a task? Quilting is one of those things for me. Sewing in sleeves is another. And then one day you just start doing the work and voila, you’re done in a fraction of the time that you thought it was going to take to do it all. Sigh. Oh, Anxiety, you relentless liar.

Nathaniel is really excited about his Christmas quilt! Despite telling him quite a few times that I’m making it for him, he keeps forgetting that it’s for him, so I’ve been able to witness him go through “initial” excitement over this quilt a number of times, which is very heartwarming. It’s going to look so great in his room during the Christmas season!

The secret knitting is coming along nicely as well. (I totally want to keep this project for myself.) I finished up the first half of the project and am starting work on the second half today. This project/gift should be done by the middle of next week, easy. Yay!

I’ve got more secret knitting to do after that, and I’m trying to decide if I use a stash yarn that…will suffice, or order new yarn that will elicit feelings of perfection. I’m leaning towards sufficing because I’m apparently super jazzed over finishing UFOs and using up stash right now, and it’s probably best to capitalize on that feeling. The new yarn I want to order will probably happen eventually anyway (like for next year’s version of this project), so it’s not like I’d miss out on that yarn in the long run. I’m strung out on the feeling of being responsible, y’all…it’s been a long time since I felt like I was on top of things and it’s nice to experience this again!

How are your holiday crafting goals coming along?

Briar Rose Baby Quilt

July 22, 20165 Comments

Another baby quilt completed during this Year of ALL THE BABIES™! This was for another friend from college, and I decided to bust out the coveted Briar Rose charm packs that I had been saving for “something special.” She had mentioned in Facebook comments that she hoped to not “drown in a sea of pink,” and Briar Rose is the perfect amount of girly without a lot of pink, in my opinion.

My oldest daughter, Emily, helped me out with piecing the top as part of her summer chores (I’ve assigned one hour of sewing to her everyday in the hopes that she’ll start making a dent in some of her WIPs). I then took over from there with the quilting and finishing.

I was stressing pretty bad about the baby quilts when I started quilting this one, and I just decided to let go of all of the expectations of getting gifts done before the babies were born so I could actually enjoy the process of making the gifts. I was going to burn through the quilting on this with a simple stipple design, but the quilt spoke to me and it wanted some sort of floral quilting. Floral stipple? Nope. Chrysanthemum all-over design? Nope. And then the idea of vines and clover popped into my head, and the quilt clapped its hands in excitement, and off we went. It took longer to do, but I’m so glad I went that route. It was a good exercise in doing something new.

I tracked down some Briar Rose yardage* for the back, which made my matchy-matchy heart so happy, and I dipped into my preciously-hoarded stash of my own Briar Rose yardage for the binding.

I decided to take some time and also have fun with the label, and I love how it turned out…little, teeny pinwheels! Oh, be still my heart. Love, love, love.

It’s simple patchwork, yes, but I’m super proud of it–beautiful fabric, new quilting design, and adorable little label. It makes me smile to look at the pictures every time I see them. AND it was a joint project with my girl…win-win all around.

*I found the Briar Rose yardage at Lark Cottons, and they still have yardage of various prints!

Tutorial: Trapunto Quilting

July 15, 2015July 15, 20153 Comments

As promised last week in my unveiling of the Snowflake Trapunto pillow, here’s a tutorial on how to do trapunto quilting.

Trapunto quilting, or “stuffed” quilting, is super simple. In fact, you’re probably just going to smack your forehead with the palm of your hand after reading through this tutorial. Long story made short: You quilt something in your normal manner, and then go back and stuff a little more fluffy stuff into parts that you want to puff out more. Continue reading →

Snowflake Trapunto Pillow

July 9, 2015July 15, 20153 Comments

If you’ve been following me on Instagram (@thatcraftycara), you saw my announcement a few weeks ago that I was asked to be a “Fabric Ambassador” for Calico Cat Fabrics. My first “assignment” arrived a few days after the announcement: a rollie pollie of the “Forget Me Not” fabric collection by Sue Daley and made by Penny Rose fabrics.

My knee jerk idea for the fabric was to add a little red and go the patriotic route, but I knew I couldn’t get something made up fast enough for the approaching Fourth of July weekend, so I didn’t want to spend my time making something that would then sit in a box for a year.

So I sat that little roll of fabric on my cutting table and we had a showdown.

The fabric won.

Exasperated, I went to bed.

But the next morning…ah, dear readers, the power of the early morning walk. I had too many ideas, and I eventually had an epiphany regarding how to deal with these cuts of fabric that will be making their way to me: Forget that it’s an assignment and act like it’s a gift. THEN make something that I’d want to make, rather than what I thought others wanted me to make. I mean, I was selected for the role based upon the things I was making for my own amusement, so it’d probably work out well to keep up with how I was already doing things, right?

I asked myself what I would make if no one was ever going to see that roll of fabric ever again, and a vision flashed through my mind. The blues of the fabric collection made for a good snow-themed project. Never mind that it was June, the fabric wanted to be used for wintertime purposes. So I listened to the fabric, paired it with a fat quarter of white-on-white snowflake print, found a quilt block with a large chunk of negative space in its center (“Star and Chains” from The Quilter’s Cache), and plunged forward.

I’d seen mentions of “trapunto” quilting, or “stuffed quilting,” in random corners of the blogosphere, and I’d always thought it was pretty, and I thought the technique would make for some extra prettiness on this particular project. It wasn’t hard at all, and I’m totally planning on using this technique to beef up some of my future quilting projects!

I chose a simple snowflake shape for the trapunto portion of the pillow:

This pillow used five of the fabric strips from the roll, leaving sixteen left over, so I have a second project in the works using up the other sixteen strips. I thought I’d make a second pillow at first, but I’d used up most of the dark strips on this pillow alone, and I didn’t want a pillow with less contrast. So, I’m dusting off a pattern I’ve had my eye on for a year and giving it a go with the leftovers. Two projects from one little rollie pollie!

Thank you so much, Calico Cat Fabrics, for allowing me the opportunity to work with you and to stretch my creative muscles a bit. I’m looking forward to our future projects together!

And, yes, I’m writing up a tutorial about trapunto quilting that I hope to share with you next week! See you then!

Linking up with:
Link a Finish Friday @ Richard and Tanya Quilts
Can I Get a Whoop Whoop? @ Confessions of a Fabric Addict
Let’s Bee Social @ Sew Fresh Quilts