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Hey Everyone, welcome back to Story Time Monday.

Last year around this time I was asked by Country Concessions in Cookstown, Ontario to design a quilt for their Ten Dollar Quilt Program. I gladly said yes and undertook a project which turned out much larger than I anticipated it would be.

What is a ten dollar quilt?

This is a program that runs monthly and each person receives instructions for a different block each month along with the fabrics for the block. The cost is $10.00 paid on the first month. The key is to come each month with the block finished and receive the next block at no charge. If you miss a month or haven’t made the block then another $10.00 has to be paid. In fact you can make 12 blocks with fabric for a minimum of $10.00 or up to $120.00 depending on how diligent you are at completing the block and going to the meetings.

Each month there is also a little talk at the meeting about what is going on in the shop, what is new in the shop or a demonstration with a new gadget, ruler, etc.

A pretty cool idea.

If you wish to finish the quilt as the designer has then a finishing kit can be purchased which usually comes in a couple of different colour ways.

Designing the quilt

Pinwheel blocks

I started the designing in EQ and quickly realised that I had to do something that would suit all levels of quilters. Not too hard but not too easy either. I decided to go with a pinwheel theme and each block would be made from different colours – 12 in all. If I were to do it again I know I would follow the colour wheel just a bit more carefully to get the 12 colours but at the time I hadn’t even put my colour class together so didn’t think about it. I still managed to get 12 different sets of colours for each block.

The blocks took the longest as I needed to get just the right values of the fabrics to make the pinwheels pop in each block. Value is certainly what creates interest in the design and with each block being a monochromatic colour scheme value was certainly the key to making everything work.

For instance the purple block I originally only did with two colours and found it to be very dull.

Purple colour with only a light and dark fabric – looks okay but…….

Then I added a third colour so I had light, medium and dark valued fabrics in the block. The design popped when I did this. Often times when a dark and light are put together the result is dull but then add in that medium value to balance everything out and it is magic.

Purple block with the medium value fabric – what a difference

A couple of my favourite blocks.

Designing the Quilt Background

For the background I wanted something that looked like lattice or tile work and so I chose the Butterfly block for this. Using a dark, medium and light value for this block was essential to create the look I was after.

I did the whole centre on point as well which meant I had to create setting triangle and corner triangle blocks to carry the background design to the edge of the border. I have become quite good at creating triangular blocks especially since my new on line class has them as well.

Quilt on the design wall which had to be turned vertical for all the pieces to fit

Designing the Quilt Border

Funny but I could not just put a plain border on this quilt and chose to continue on with the half square triangles that were used in every one of the 12 coloured blocks. I am sure all who have made the quilt can make half square triangles in their sleep now!

A pinwheel in each corner with a double sawtooth border is what was decided on. This border frames the inner quilt very nicely.

Quilting the Quilt

I had the quilt quilted on a long arm with an edge to edge design but the quilt design does lend itself well to custom quilting as well. Thank you to Nuela from Country Concessions for quilting my quilt – she did a great job.

The finished quilt size is 86 ½″ x 101 ½″.

Now you know what a Ten Dollar Quilt is.

Contact me to order this pattern as a single pattern or for a BOM program.

By the way the name of this quilt is Garden Stones.

Happy Quilting!

I shared this on Stitch By Stitch, Quilt Story Fabric Tuesday, Richard and Tanya Quilts, Charm About You