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Hi there. I’m Nicole Gilbert and you’ve joined the Stop Scrolling, Start Sewing podcast. Are you new to sewing and want to start quilting but have no idea where to begin? Each Wednesday join me as I share the ins and outs of that quilt life. If you don’t have a sewing machine, have no idea how much fabric you need or you’re just trying to figure out where the heck to stick that bobbin. This is the podcast for you.

 

Hey folks! Welcome to Episode 45 of the Stop Scrolling, Start Sewing podcast. Nicole here and I am so happy that you’re here with me today. On today’s show we are chatting about quilt panels. I know and namely what the heck you can do with them. So first I just want to do a quick announcement because you know that’s how I roll. Ok I love getting questions from all of you. Seriously it makes my day when one of you slides up into my DMs or sends me an email. Earlier this week someone asked me about the supplies that you’ll need to get started with quilting and it really is such a good question. In fact I did a whole episode on it; Episode 2. So if you want to check that out you can go to nicolegilbertquilts.com/episode-2 to have a listen to that but I have also created a checklist. Which I think, if I do say so myself, is so helpful not only in making sure that you have everything you need but also in allowing you to save some cash on the things that you can totally skip. There are quite a few things out there that are nice to haves but they’re absolutely not necessities and if the cost of stocking up is what’s stopping you from quilting this is a checklist I want you to check out seriously. So to download your free checklist head on over to nicolegilbertquilts.com/supplies to download yours today. 

 

Ok guys let’s get sewing. So today we’re chatting about quilt panels. Ok I am the first one to admit – quilt panels not really my jam but I have used them. So I get it I get why quilt panels can be pretty cool, it also depends on finding the right quilt panel. I will say nine times out of ten I look at a quilt panel and I’m like, “Nah not for me dog. Yeah that’s a no from me,” but that tenth time I’m like, “Holy cow that thing is so cool.” So it is out there you just have to find it. Now I know quilters who use quilt panels all the time and their quilts are beautiful, absolutely beautiful. They’re not my style but that doesn’t mean they’re not a good style. You know what I mean? Like we all have to keep that in mind. Like every that’s what’s great about quilting that’s what great what’s great about any artistic hobby. What you like is not necessarily what somebody else likes. It doesn’t mean what they like is not good it just means that it’s not your jam and that’s ok. So there are a lot of cool ways to use quilt panels though that I think can potentially change how you’re looking at them because I will say I’m never going to use a quilt panel of two moose on the side of a river like drinking with like a little log cabin in the background. That’s not my thing – it’s not my thing that’s ok. But there are some pretty cool quilt panels out there. 

 

So before I get too deep because you know me let us talk about what is a quilt panel for those of you who are not familiar. Quilt panels are basically like a solid picture or a large print like a really large print. Like larger than a Tula Pink Curiouser and Curiouser Red Queen kind of a thing like big real big or it’s like a scene and they’re usually – I would say a lot of panels end up being like 24 by 36 is a common size or like 36 by 36 or you know like really big. Enough that it could be like a big scene in the center of a quilt so so they’re pretty large and you know we’ve all seen the safari animals. We’ve all seen the large game animals on the side of a river, we’ve all seen the baby panels with like stuffed animals and and bears and blocks and all of that. These are pretty familiar and often used panels when we see them in quilt shops when we see panels being displayed at Guilds and what not. So those are pretty, pretty common, so that’s kind of what a quilt panel is. 

 

Now how are they sold? So you can buy them just straight up as the panel. Like you’re not going to go and ask for yardage of a panel. It’s just going to be the one panel. So that’s how you’re going to purchase them, they come usually pre-packaged but I am seeing a growing trend and I’m here for it because these are usually the quilt panels I gravitate towards, usually are in this latter camp. They’re getting released as an addition to a quilt line and so what that means is – trying to think of an example and of course I’m spacing – this is why I should take notes – but this totally yeah so when a quilt line is released and of course all the quilt lines that are coming to my mind right now don’t have panels associated with them. But a quilt line usually is anywhere from 10 to 40 different prints in several different colorways that all work together and look beautiful and it’s beautifully curated and that’s why we love our fabric designers. But often the when you’re seeing a panel that gets released with the quilt line it’s because that particular scene or large print or extremely large repeat works really well with that fabric line. So it matches, all the colors go together and it’s really cool. I’m personally waiting for Tula Pink to do one. I know it sounds crazy because like Tula is super modern and I would say pretty much everyone can agree quilt panels are not the most modern way to make a quilt but can you imagine like a cool Alice in Wonderland panel that Tula Pink would come out with that would go with Curiouser and Curiouser – pretty cool. Or like a total on it’s head kind of rendering of the woodland animals that she does and All Stars like the owl and the squirrel and all that in like a cool, crazy psychedelic, acid trip kind of panel to go with All Stars. Anyway, I’m just spit balling. If you’re out there, Tula, listening to me, get at me I got some ideas. Anyway, but there pretty cool when they’ve got all of these associated prints. So that’s kind of how the two ways you’re going to find panels – you’re going to find just the panel by itself or you’re going to find a panel in addition to a quilt line. I definitely suggest if you see a panel that’s in addition to a quilt line – getting the jelly roll or the charm pack or the layer cake whatever that goes with it because it will help you in enhancing your panel. 

 

So now that is a great segway into how do we use quilt panels and this is I’m flying through this episode I’m noticing. So how do we use quilt panels? So the first and most obvious and the thing that a lot of you will see kind of hanging in your local quilt shop is going to be a panel using borders. And so what what a lot of quilters will do is they will purchase a quilt panel that they love and then they will find some pretty cool blender fabrics or solid fabrics that enhance the panel and that’ll be how they basically make the panel larger in order to be a throw, twin, queen, whatever size quilt that they’re looking for. So that is is super easy. What I do like about this and I’ve never done that style because it’s just not my style but what is really great about it it’s a great way to make a fast quilt that looks really great because it’s got this awesome big design panel in the center. that’s a decent size and so they’re great for whipping out like a last minute quilt that you’re like, “Oh gosh this would be a great gift but I just don’t have time.” Do it that way. 

 

So that’s like plain borders now you could do the same thing but you can do more elaborate borders which are pretty cool. I will say you’ll see a lot of like chasing, flying geese borders and some interesting like disappearing nine patch borders or checkerboards or really just anything with some sort of piecing and however elaborate you choose to get with that – totally up to you. I’m going to put some pictures of this in the show notes so that you kind of have an idea of what these things look like and then of course they’re still being put in in a border concept. So you’re still going to have this like framing happening around the quilt until it gets around the quilt panel until it gets large enough to be your desired size quilt, but these tend to be really visually interesting because you are using half square triangles, you are using flying geese, you are using disappearing nine blocks – nine patches. So pretty they can be pretty visually appealing but again centered on this giant focal panel. 

 

And then for another type of border and this one is where it starts to get a little bit more visually they’re starting to get more and more visually interesting these these different options that I’m discussing with you. So this next one is offset borders. Which I think is actually kind of cool instead of just like centering it and framing it you know it’s up in the upper left corner and then you’ve got your borders under it and to the to the one side and so you can do some pretty cool optical illusions this way with shadowing so it kind of looks like that panel is has like moved along. It kind of reminds me of and this is crazy and also dating me but do you remember solitaire on like Windows 95 and you would win solitaire and the little card deck would like bounce along the screen and it would leave this like shadow of where the card deck had been? I’ve never felt so old in my life, anyway, but that’s kind of the the trail that you can get by offsetting your panel and doing this type of border. And again it’s it’s a it’s a look. That’s how I’ll describe it, it’s a look. It might not be your look, it might not be my look, but it’s a look and it’s a way to do it. So it’s pretty interesting, what I love about the idea of using panels -ok so this is me going on my little side side trip – what I love about the idea of using panels is that it’s such a traditional method and it has so many kind of opinions unfortunately with modern quilters headed towards the neigh side of using panels – that if you can figure out a cool way to use a panel holy cow, it looks pretty flippin cool – just because it’s so different and so not expected and I love that. Love it, love it, love it, love it – which is why I thought that quilt panels would be a good topic to discuss a lot of times I talk about only things that I just love to do and I mean that’s kind of the beauty of having my own podcast – I get to talk about what I want you know. But I love having an artistic hobby where I can do the expected in a very unexpected way. I kinda I want you guys to start exploring that because sometimes quilting can be so rigid in the rules and the way that we’re supposed to do it, which is kind of the magic of having a creative hobby that revolves around math, but we still need to get creative. We still need to do things a little bit different and especially with my listeners and I love you guys so much, I have a large percentage of listeners that are new quilters or even want to be quilters – like they like hearing all this stuff and they’re like, “ok ok.” They’re getting interested but they haven’t really dove on in and there’s so many rules and restrictions and I still – you gotta follow some of those rules, there’s a reason why we use 1/4 inch seam allowance you know. Some of these rules are important but some of these rules need to be broken or twisted or changed and that’s how you come to the really cool stuff. 

 

So that’s my soapbox moment, back to the episode. Anyway, so that’s kind of how you would use a quilt panel with borders. Now another thing that you can do is framing smaller blocks, not all quilt panels are giant scenes. So some quilt panels are a series of squares so and some of them are mixed. So I have seen quilt panels that are like the giant scene and then it comes with six 12 by 12 smaller scenes. And so a really popular one that you may see quite often is like for a baby quilt panel, there’s like the giant teddy bear with the blocks next to him and it’s all in pinks and blues and and pale yellows. And then there are six squares 12 by 12 squares and they’re like the letter A, the letter B, the letter C and then the number one, the number two, the number three. I swear that I think all of you probably in your quilt life if you’re out and you’re shopping regularly because that’s what I do – I’m a consumer – will come across this panel because it’s been done a million times and that’s not a bad thing because baby quilts – I swear to God I think that baby quilts are the number one way that we grow our quilting community because you’re like, “oh I’m interested in sewing, oh you’re having a baby,” and then it’s like the perfect excuse to learn to quilt. So I’m not against it I’m just saying it’s pretty prevalent. Anyway, so what happens is so you get these giant panels with these little smaller blocks that are like little individual scenes so there’s that but then there’s also ones that are nothing but those small 8 by 8, 12 by 12 individual blocks and so what you can do is you can frame those individual blocks in small skinny borders and set those into a larger quilt. And the larger quilt could be anything, you pretty much can think of your larger quilt as being your background fabric. What would you choose that would enhance those squares? You don’t have to use a solid background, you can use kind of anything, you could do a traditional star blocks, you can use log cabins, you could use anything and then set those smaller framed blocks inside of that. And now your brain can kind of start being like, “oh ok alright.” There’s some different things that you can do, things can get kind of crazy, not gonna lie. 

 

Ok so that’s framing the smaller blocks. Now the next one is attic windows and this is actually like a traditional block to be used with panels. Like if people are like, “oh what’s a quilt block I could use with the panel?” It’s an attic window and so what an attic window does is you take your quilt panel and you cut it up. Typically like 4 by 4 or 3 by 4 these are the squares not the size of the square but like how many. So you would in a panel you would get 12 squares out of the whole thing you would cut it up into 12 pieces so three pieces by four pieces you know what I mean. And so you would cut it up and so now your scene has been broken up, it’s like shrapnel and then each of those little blocks are set into a quote unquote attic window which is a frame that kind of makes it look like when you put them all back together so then you put this little frame this very specific style of the frame and then you reassemble them in the correct order again. But now it’s slightly bigger because you’ve put this special little frame on each of these 12 pieces that you’ve cut up and you know when you are looking out of a window and windows nowadays are typically flat pane but actually in the room I’m sitting in right now I have the style window that I’m trying to describe but the window actually has like one cross bar across the middle and then two vertical bars that so then it dissects the window into six pieces and then there’s an upper pain in the lower pane so there’s 12 pieces. This quilt block kind of mimics that look so that that way when you’re looking at this quilt block it looks like you’re looking through those lines on a window at a scene. Does that make sense? That sounds crazy, it sounds crazy but again I will put a picture of it in the show notes so you understand. Ok but it’s effective, again attic windows not my jam not my jam but it is a cool look especially I will say if my husband ever gets his way and we have a game lodge I will probably do an attic window quilt with those moose on the side of the river because it just will go. You know and sometimes my personal design -well first of all all the time – my personal design aesthetic does not mesh with my husband’s hobbies and so while he just cannot wait to mount that giant buffalo head that’s at his mother’s house and I am dragging my feet of getting it into my house at some point it’s going to have to go up because it is his and I have a quilt studio and he has you know a quarter of a garage. So it’s gonna have to happen and when it does happen I will make the moose and it will probably be an attic window quilt ’cause if you’re going to do it, just just go – go full out. 

 

Now another thing that you could do which is really flipping cool is a kaleidoscope. And so to do this you actually have to purchase several of the same panel and then you’re going to cut it up so that the same pieces go together. And so this very much involves fussy cutting and if you haven’t listened to my fussy cutting episode it was pretty recent actually maybe Episode 43 I will link to it in the show notes. Abby will tell me if I am wrong, which is why I love having her here but I will definitely link to it in the show notes. So fussy cutting is where you are cutting your fabric in very deliberate manner to accent a very specific part of the pattern and so you’ll buy multiple of these panels, cut them up so that you have the exact same pieces and then you put those pieces together and create a kaleidoscope. And oftentimes your kaleidoscopes will look nothing like the original panel and that’s kind of cool. And that’s a great way to use some of those panels that are kicking around your quilt shop that you’re like, “she’s had these things on sale for $2.00 forever and I can see why because they’re pretty ugly,” but if you buy them all you’re going to pay like less than 20 bucks and then you can make some really cool stuff with kaleidoscopes.

 

I need to do that, that’s now officially on my 2021 quilty bucket list. Ok so – Oh my gosh I’m so happy I did this episode – now I’m thinking of all of these things that I will do. Which is pretty cool. Alright so that’s the kaleidoscope thing and it’s a thing it’s gotten pretty popular recently. I think really in the uptick of fussy cutting and English Paper Piercing – this kaleidoscope-ing the panels kind of fits right into that same wheelhouse. So there’s that and then you could also just not kaleidoscope but just cut that thing up. A million different pieces, different shapes, different sizes, really deconstruct the scene and put it back together in whatever way makes sense to your heart’s desire – pretty cool pretty, pretty flaking cool. 

 

Ok and now the next way that you can use a panel is to scatter it amongst a sampler. So I love sampler quilts, I talk about them quite a bit in these Sew Along Episode I did a couple weeks ago but sampler quilts are great because they are great skill builders and they often get you to use fabrics that you wouldn’t typically use or use techniques that you wouldn’t typically do and then it doesn’t like – you don’t feel pigeonholed like, “Oh my gosh I’m using this thing and I hate it,” because it’s like oh you’re only going to do it once you know. Like curves, I can’t stand curve piecing but if like a sampler quilt has like one curve I’ll do it and then I suck it up but I do it and then I also get to say, “hey I use curves,” you know. But a really cool thing that you could do is especially with the panels that have those smaller blocks – like preprinted smaller blocks – you can scatter those preprinted smaller blocks amongst a larger sampler quilt. So you’ll get your traditional like Ohio Stars and you know you can put in curve piecing if you want, you could do your Flying Geese, you could do your Sawtooth Star, you could do whatever because it’s a sampler quilt and then you know you strategically place those little squares throughout it, it adds some meat and it adds something different. I love it to be just something different, something unexpected but pretty flipping cool. So you can go ahead and do that. Yeah so I actually really like that and again I gotta try some of these things.

 

I’m actually really excited now that I’m thinking about it and now my last way for you to use a panel would be sashing. And so that one it’s like the most traditional meets the most traditional thing that you could do. Now sashing is those nice straight strips that individually section out each block. It’s kind of tale as old as time kind of a thing with quilting and you can do this with the panel as well. So lots of cool different ways that you can use quilt panels, some of them cooler than others not going to lie, some of them I probably will never do in my lifetime. Some of them didn’t even know I wanted to do until I started chatting about them with you guys so thank you guys for that. Pretty good and I legitimately was like – as I’m sitting here I’m like writing this down in my little quilt to do but yeah if you have any questions nicole@nicolegilbertquilts.com I’m happy to answer them. If you wanna see kind of what some of these things look like in action head over to the show notes nicolegilbertquilts.com/episode-45. Can’t believe we’re already on Episode 45 guys, this year has flown by and yeah thank you.

 

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