Stash Busting Challenge #1: Paving Stone Quilt

This year, I joined a group of bloggers for a monthly Stash Busting Challenge! On the last Monday of the month, each blogger will share a project that uses up some their stash of craft supplies. You can find a list of participants at the end of this post. Click on their blog link to check out their ideas!

For my first project, I decided to make a quilt to help reduce my massive collection of fabric. This paving stone quilt has pretty much depleted my yellow, grey, white and black fabric. I even used some of my husband’s old dress shirts to complete the quilt.

My paving stone quilt is my first attempt at quilting and I’m really happy with the results. I like the pop of yellow among the randomness of the black, white and grey patches.

I chose this pattern because it seemed relatively easy. It’s from a book called Stitch Savvy by Deborah Moebes which I found at my local library. Stitch Savvy is full of fun projects and I highly recommend checking it out.

HOW TO MAKE A PAVING STONE QUILT

I’m not going to get into too many details on how I made this quilt but here is a quick overview.

Each square has three different sized rectangles (1, 3, 4) and one square (2).

To create the paving stone pattern, each time as you add a square, turn it 90 degrees.
As indicated by the arrows in the picture below, you will see that the diagonals show the same layout.

With help from my Mom (taking the photo) and my Aunt, we tied the quilt on the four corners of each square. Even my 4 year old son gave it a try!

QUILTING HACK

My Mom recommended that I purchase a king sized sheet for the backing. Fabric from the fabric store will rarely be wide enough to fit a queen quilt. A king sized sheet is the perfect solution! You won’t have to piece together fabric and there’s plenty of leftover material to make matching double sided binding for the edges of the quilt. Great tip Mom!