Quilt Finish – Grandma Sparkles Quilt

As I was organising photos yesterday for the Floating Flowers post, I stumbled across these photos I took of my finished Grandma Sparkles Quilt. I had posted the photos on Instagram, but never posted the finished quilt here on the blog. What a great time to do so (everything happens for a reason!), in order to see such a contrasting use of the same quilt block. While Floating Flowers was a mixed bag of traditional and improvisational piecing, this Grandma Sparkles Quilt uses the same block set on point in a more traditional tessellation. I did add ample negative space to the sides to create a more modern composition.

Oh, and look at me add a border to a quilt! I was clearly feeling some sort of traditional oats when I was working on this between 2017 and 2019. Just call me a versatile quilter! I think I also knew this would be hanging out at Grandma Sparkles’s house, so I didn’t want to go too footloose and fancy free. Although, she’d love any quilt I pushed her way, whether wearing stilettos or a sensible thigh-high hooker boot. That’s what grandmas are for!

The fabrics are all from Anna-Maria Horner’s Pretty Potent range, combined with Art Gallery Pure solids. Ya’ll know I’m not generally a fan of floral motifs (sorry AMH!), but this range got me with its ideology, and skew-wiff colour palette. There’s something very 1982-vintage about it, and that was a great year for champagne, so how could I not fall deep into the colour, honey?!

The Grandma Sparkles Quilt Block finishes at 15″ square, so it quickly fills out a quilt. Make nine blocks and you’ve got a baby quilt ready to go! As you can see from the two quilts I’ve made with it, there’s a veritable variation for every situation. For now, I can file this one as a job well done, a grandma made happy, and many lessons learned about my own quilt practice.

Grandma Sparkles Quilt Block Pattern

Title: Grandma Sparkles Quilt
Size: 97″ x 97″
Pattern: Grandma Sparkles Quilt Block
Fabric: Anna-Maria Horner Pretty Potent range with Art Gallery Pure solids
Piecing: Machine stitched on Juki TL-98P with Aurifil 50wt, White 2024
Quilting: Long arm quilting, by Quilt Jane of Want It, Need It, Quilt!
Binding: Hand stitched with Aurifil 40wt, 1240 Very Dark Eggplant
Backing: Anna-Maria Horner Pretty Potent Echinacea in Outloud
Timing: July 2017 – January 2019
Favourite Part: Naming it after Grandma Sparkles!