Fun & Easy Quilt Patterns

Many times quilters, or those new to quilting, are looking for a quick and easy project. It may be for a gift, a charity quilt, or a way to use some of your favorite fabrics or a new collection that seems to be calling to you. Let me share a few suggestions here to inspire your creative mind!

I make many of the Artistic Artifacts store samples with new fabrics that have arrived at the shop. Some are designed to be made into our exclusive quilt kits, while others are simply a fun way to showcase fabric that ‘speaks’ to me — for instance, I enjoy being inspired by our curated fabric and project bundles. To keep up with all the new fabrics, I am often looking at a quilt pattern that is easy to piece and/or has fabric requirements similar to the number of fabrics in a collection or precut fabric bundle.

Given the time of year, the new Witchy Ways project bundle (pictured here) has generated a lot of chatter in the shop — bet you can imagine a lot of ways to make a quilt, wall hanging, pillows and more with these options!

I’m a big fan of the Stripology rulers, designed by Gudrun Erla of GEDesigns and made by Creative Grids! I often go first to patterns by GEDesigns, especially the Stripology Quickies book. The patterns in that book are labeled from easy to moderate, and the fabric requirements are listed by the number of half yards or fat quarters it will take for the size you want to make.

You can see a peek of a recent example of this here, a sample I made for the Diana Quilt Kit with beautiful Valori Wells fabrics Findings. The pattern is the Diana Supersized pattern from the Quickies book. It involves very basic straight cuts and stitching to make using all the fabrics in the collection.

Below, I recently made a fun quilt using the original Diana quilt pattern, — it’s a complimentary download on the GEDesigns website — which calls for precut 10 in. squares. I used a package of Tula Pink True Colors Neon for the sample.

Both patterns have you cutting squares into three sizes, then mixing and matching the fabrics to piece into blocks with simple straight stitching. Either version of Diana would also be an easy quilt to make using your serger or overlocker! If you’ve never used your serger for quilting, check out our YouTube video of Andy Martin piecing Wonky Log Cabin blocks on the BERNINA L890 — the technique works on any serger and saves having to trim after each step!

Panels are another good start for a quick quilt. Add one of our pre-cut fabric bundles or complementary fabrics to add some fun borders and you have a quick wall hanging or crib/lap size quilt. Pictured above is my in-progress project using the Are We There Yet? Project Bundle, which includes the cute ‘transport alphabet’ feature panel. I love to piece my quilt backings (you can see it to the left in the photo) and I’ve used up almost every bit of the fabric in the bundle!

Dudley Shugart, one of our quilt instructors, uses the Yellow Brick Road pattern by Atkinson Designs when she teaches our Pre Beginner Quilting Class (new session starts November 8). The class is designed to give beginner cutting and sewing techniques for those afraid to venture into quilting, or who need to get used to their sewing machine. Pictured here is a crib quilt a friend pieced using that pattern (it’s going to an orphanage in Ukraine, so my friend used her yellow and blue scraps to piece the top). I’m using my BERNINA walking foot to quilt to quilt it for her.

And don’t forget about using fabrics that have already been cut for you — precut 2.5 in. strips are especially handy as borders, but I recently used a design roll of Australian Aborigine-designed fabrics and one complementary fabric and the Villa Rosa Designs Level Up pattern card (we have a variety of these cards for in-person sales at our register counter) for a quick and easy lap quilt — see it below! Check out our sale quilt kits that include a Villa Rosa pattern and all fabric necessary for a beautiful quilt top.

I hope these suggestions inspire you whether you are new to quilting or looking for ways to use up your stash or the latest fabric collection that you just had to buy. Don’t be intimidated by more complex patterns you see posted on social media or at your guild meetings. It’s more important to have fun sewing no matter what your skills.