Clouds are for Cuddles Quilt

If you follow me on Instagram, you saw me working on this fun quilt. I was in love with these fabrics the moment they arrived… Shannon cuddle fabrics are so super soft! Both my boys had cuddle-backed blankets as babies, and still love snuggling with them. When I saw the greys and purples for this project, I knew that my moment had arrived! Finally a Shannon Cuddle quilt for ME! But, I knew I’d be sharing with the kiddos… so I made a quilt big enough for us all to cuddle under!

This quilt is cuddle from start-to finish, with Fairfield batting between. I started off with some great Shannon Cuddle fabrics. I was supposed to pick fabrics for my project, but was in the middle of my move at the time, so asked Nikki to just pick something for me… I’d figure it out. She did a great job picking fabrics for me! From the yards of awesome printed cuddle she selected, I knew I needed to make a quilt! Here’s what I used:

1 cuddle cake “Sterling Silver”
1 yard print one
4 yards print two (includes backing – use 1 yard print 2, and 3 yards backing if you want a different backing)

Cuddle yardage is nice and wide, perfect for making bigger quilts without having to worry about pieced backs! This quilt is 57″x76″, without having to piece the back! I quilted it on my regular domestic sewing machine, so I didn’t need a lot of extra on the sides for quilting – if you plan on taking this to a long-armer, you might need to stitch a strip of fabric to each side to attach to the longarm.

Making the quilt was pretty straightforward.

1. From each fabric, cut two strips, one 10×57.5″, one 15×57.5″

2. Stitch together three rows of cuddle cake squares, each 6 squares long.

3. Alternate the rows of fabric as follows:
10″ strip fabric A
cuddle cake squares
15″ strip fabric B
cuddle cake squares
15″ strip fabric A
cuddle cake squares
10″ strip fabric B

Then quilt and bind it! I used cuddle for both the backing and the binding. This was my first time both free-motion quilting on cuddle, and binding with cuddle… and I don’t know why I waited so long!

Quilting on cuddle was simple, and really forgiving. I spray basted the front and backing to my Fairfield batting. To secure it a little more before free motion quilting, I used my walking foot to stitch-in-the-ditch between the rows. Then I had fun quilting!

 

I free-motion quilted the squares in different ways, but added some walking-foot quilting on some of the rows, because I had no idea how I wanted to quilt this fabric… so I just went with simple!

 

Oh so snuggly!