Introducing the Cadence Court Quilt
Hello everyone! Are you ready to make a stunning quilt using the foundation paper piecing method? Over the next several blog posts, follow along with me while I construct a Cadence Court quilt. This quilt is good for confident beginners, whether you have paper-piecing experience or not. The designer, Sassafras Lane Designs, does provide basic paper-piecing instructions as well as a coloring diagram to help you plan your quilt.
Fabric Selection
For my quilt, I decided to use Alison Glass fabrics in sunset colors for the wedges. I selected a limited palette of 6 colors so I used each color 4 times in the quilt. You can use up to 24 colors, one for each wedge, depending on the look that you want to achieve. You can search the #cadencecourt hashtag on Instagram to find inspiration for different color combinations.These are the fabrics I chose:
- Alison Glass Sun Print Compass Quilting Cotton in Sangria
- Alison Glass Sun Print Compass Quilting Cotton in Jam
- Alison Glass Endpaper Quilting Cotton in Cinnabar
- Alison Glass Sun Print Depths Quilting Cotton in Tiger
- Alison Glass Sun Print Depths Quilting Cotton in Honey
- Alison Glass Endpaper Quilting Cotton in Goldenrod
The background fabric is a single white Alison Glass print. In the book, there are instructions for using 3 background fabrics, but I simplified by using one background. If you use multiple background fabrics, be sure to select similar values to keep the focus on the colorful wedges.
For the dark fabric, I’m using a rose gold heart print on a black background from the “Yes, Please” line by Riley Blake. The light and medium fabrics are two solid greys.
Thread Choices and Color Swatch Chart
On page 2, the Introduction section provides some handy tips and a color swatch chart. I do recommend starching your fabrics just to help stop any fabric stretching. I also use two thread colors in a 50-weight or finer: a white and a black. I used white anytime I sewed pieces to the white background and black when sewing the colorful wedge segments to the dark pieces. If you use white thread on the dark pieces, your white thread will show and vice versa, so be careful!
Use the color swatch chart and glue small pieces of your fabrics to keep track of everything. I copied the wedge segments onto paper designed for foundation paper piecing. It is thinner than normal copy paper and helps to keep your designs crisper.
Cut a Test Wedge
I started by constructing the first wedge to get a feel for the pattern. Cut out all the fabric pieces for wedge 1 and label them.
In the next blog post, I’ll provide some construction tips for the wedges.
Happy quilting!
Jen
