Let’s Make a Biscuit Quilt

Before I moved away from Oregon, I visited my friend’s new shop, and picked up a Basic Grey Layer Cake. A Layer cake is a 10″ square stack of 42 fabrics in a fabric line. Typically, you get one of each print, and duplicates of several of the more popular prints. It’s a great way to buy an entire fabric line without buying yardage (fabric cut off from a bolt).

I’ve been saving it for something special and I decided to make it up into a biscuit/puff quilt. I used this tutorial from Lo and Behold Stitchery. Because my fabric stash is getting a little sparse (I don’t have any matching prints to pull from my stash to make it bigger), I did not trim my squares to 4.5″ like the blog instructs – I kept them at 5″. Again, this is in order to keep the size of my finished quilt as large as possible. For the backing squares, I cut 4.5″ squares. I used fabric in my purge pile since the backing squares will be hidden.

Here is step one, finished. All the 5″ squares are sewn to the backing squares (leaving one side open), with a little pleat on each side. I love the next step, piecing and stuffing! After the first few rows, it did work better to arrange all the squares before I started sewing.

As the quilt came together, it became apparent that if I want this quilt to be larger than toddler-sized, I was going to need to add more fabric. When I calculated the finished size, initially, I used a 4.5″ finished square sized at 13×13 (adding one square from my stash). This didn’t seem so bad, at almost 60″ square. However, the finished size of each square is actually 4″. I don’t like adding on mid-project because that means more $$$. But, I ordered an additional Charm Pack (42 – 5″ squares). A charm pack is one-fourth the size of a Layer Cake. Here’s how the sizing will work out: Layer Cake (42- 10″ squares cut into 4 – 5″ squares (42*4) = 168 squares) plus 1 Charm pack (42 – 5″ squares).

168 + 42 = 210

Finished dimensions: 14 wide x 15 long (210 squares), which equals 56″ x 60.” Perfect for a sofa, tv-watching quilt.

I also ordered a half yard of coordinating fabric for the binding. I want to take a nap right now. Look how fluffy:

The charm pack finally arrived, so I will add those rows, next. I thought I’d be able to do this project with one 12 oz bag of Poly-Fil, but I ended up grabbing an additional 16 oz bag from WalMart for under $3.50. That’s less expensive than JoAnn with a coupon and on sale. A friend offered me a bag of Poly-Fil from their stash that appeared to be about 20 years old. I didn’t realize Poly-Fil changed so much over the years. The older bag’s stuffing looked like cotton candy and did not hold up to a squish-test. The newer material is so inexpensive that it’s worth it.

Once it’s finished, I’ll add an update post. I’m working on this as a gift, so I have just a few weeks before it’s “due.”