Fat Quarter Cubes QAL with the Fat Quarter Shop

Today I’m sharing my version of the Fat Quarter Cubes QAL from the Fat Quarter Shop. The squares are 18 1/2″, which makes for a fun & quick sew, even with the borders. I sewed up the whole top in one day! Now, as easy as it was to make the top, it was twice as hard to get it quilted. That has nothing to do with the pattern or the fabric, just some little issues between me & my sewing machine. I’ll tell you all about my woes & show you how this quick quilt finished up in the post. ; )

Disclaimer:  The Fat Quarter Shop provided me with a gift certificate towards the purchase of fabric for this quilt. All opinions about the fabric I chose & the pattern are my own. This post also contains affiliate links which means I may receive a small commission if you buy something through my link or ad. This does not change your cost it just helps keep this blog running. Thanks for your support! See Privacy Policy & Affiliate Deals page for more information.

Be sure to share picks of your quilt on Instagram & Facebook! Just use #fqsquiltalong and #fatquartercubesquilt so we can all see find them & see them!  : )

The Fabric

Last month I showed y’all the two sets of fabric I was debating on using for this quilt. It was between the Dapper collection by Tim Holtz & the Autumn Fields collection featuring Art Gallery Fabrics. I had selected a fabric from the Denim Studio collection by Art Gallery Fabrics for the borders. The color I chose is Deep Ocea, but it must have been almost gone because I don’t see it anymore!

Ultimately I decided to use the Dapper collection because my husband’s birthday is this month & it’s a very “manly” set of prints. I really like the prints too, so that was figured in as well! I mean, look at all these wonderful prints…

It’s got some blueprints too! I’m a former drafter & now I teach drafting, so I’m loving that! I like the addition of the blue color as well because it gives it some cool tones to balance out all the warm ones.

This pattern calls for 18 fat quarters, so I needed 2 more to have enough. I chose a Cotton + Steel print & a brown pin stripe scrap I had on hand. They blend in nicely!

Time to chop it up & sew it back together!

The Squares

The pattern calls for 12 fat quarters cut one way & 6 cut another way. I divided my fat quarters into stacks of 6, aligning one corner. This made it quick & easy to cut out with the rotary cutter. I use a 60 mm rotary cutter when I cut through this many layers of fabric.

One thing I really love about this pattern is that there are only two different shapes that make up the whole block. The long strip is for making the binding!  : D

I had plenty of yummy leftovers too…

Before I started sewing the pieces together, I divided them into 3 groups – light, medium, & dark. This helped me spread things out better over the quilt blocks.

I sorted everything into blocks & stacked them up for some chain sewing.

Sew & press & sew & press & before I knew it, all the blocks were done!

I took a lunch break & then cut out the borders, which is just strips. By the end of the day, I had a whole quilt top made!

It was looking great!

Time to make a quilt sandwich!

The Quilting

For the back, I used the remaining denim fabric & some fat quarter leftovers on the outside & an Upstairs at Manor print in black. The link is to the brown version because the black is sold out! It was just working out, but the denim was a wee bit short…

No worries, I have some leftovers that will fill in just fine! I got everything basted, rolled up, & ready to quilt.

I had a plan & I had a quilting pattern drawn up, but it was not to be! My little sewing machine fought me tooth & nail as I tried to maneuver this queen sized quilt around. I tried several ways, but had to pull it all out & settle for straight line quilting. Man, I really need to get my other machine fixed!

Even thought I switched to straight line quilting, I was still having issues. Puckering galore! Then I realized – maybe I need to change the needle. The one in the machine was well past needing to be replaced. Ug!

So, things were going a little better, until I realized, at some point, the backing had shifted & was no longer overlapping the front. Good grief y’all!

It started way too far back for me to even consider taking out all that quilting. My hand marks the spot…

I finally moved to my drafting table to finish quilting this. Why I was trying to push it around on my sewing desk in the corner, I really don’t know! It got a little easier once I moved – I do know that! Once I finished quilting everything but the outer borders, I trimmed it up to see where I needed to patch the back.

Luckily, I had some strips left over that matched & I just sewed it along the edge to fill in. Time to quilt the borders!

Zippy, zippy! I ran the edges of this quilt through the serger before binding it & it made it so much easier to bind.

Finally Finished!

Well, here it is in all it’s glory…

I wanted to take pictures outside, but it rained last night & the ground is really wet.

Even though this quilt gave me grief, I really like how it turned out!

Here’s the back…

I think the line quilting suits it well & I’m kinda glad the quilting pattern didn’t work out!

My husband likes it too, which is what is most important!

This is such an easy pattern to make & it’s really great to show off fabrics you love. I may be making one for myself before long! ; )

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