If I had to pick just one fabric designer to sew with for the rest of my life, it would probably be Denyse Schmidt. She strikes just the right cord between modern and traditional and I love that her prints can be mixed with each other but also mix well with other patterns. When I saw that she had a new collection called Darling, I knew it would be perfect for the Melody Quilt Pattern.
Since the lap size version of the Melody Quilt can be made with fat eighths or fat quarters, I wanted to make one of each to show you what they look like. You need a pretty good number of fat eighths for the pattern and this collection allllmooost had enough. Not quite.
Some fabric collections have lots of prints (25+) and some have very few (more like 10-12) so I try to accommodate both types of collections. Darling has 27 prints and I needed 26, but two of the prints are cheater HST prints and I didn't think they would work particularly well here so I ended up using one of the prints twice.
In the Speckled version of this quilt, I used a lighter and darker shade of each color for the blocks but that wasn't going to work with this collection so I started by pairing up my prints. I wanted to vary scale, color, and value within each block so that the pattern didn't get muddled.
I also knew that I needed to use a color other than white for the background fabric since there are several white prints in the collection. I used a favorite solid called Sand Dune from the Designer Essentials Solids. This color is not made anymore and I would love if they would bring it back — if anyone from FreeSpirit Fabrics is reading this, please bring back Sand Dune! My bolt is almost bare.
The backing fabric is an older Denyse Schmidt print that I had in my stash. I try to stock up on her prints for backing fabrics when I see them on sale because I know I will use them eventually.
This quilt ended up making the pattern look so much different than the Speckled version — I love how that happens! And the scrappy version looks even more unique. I will share that one soon. You can find Darling in quilt shops now and you can find the Melody Quilt Pattern at shop.kitchentablequilting.com.
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