Color Options from American Patchwork & Quilting® October 2010

Some things never go out of style, including a classic quilt made with timeless woven fabrics. Foundation piecing allows a purposefully placed plaid design to emerge without worrying about bias edges.

Square-in-a-Square Table Topper

Instead of plaids, quilt tester Laura Boehnke chose nondirectional prints from the Oodles of Doodles and Rhapsodie Colorée II collections by Ricky Tims for Red Rooster Fabrics for her wall hanging version of Plaid Tidings. Mottled solids pick up colors found in the three multicolor prints used in the blocks, inner border, and outer border.

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Feather your nest with an heirloom-quality pillow graced with delicate needle-turn appliqué and hand-drawn details.

Fusible Appliqué Bird Pillow

Use flannel scraps to create bird, nest, egg, and berry appliqué pieces.
Fuse the pieces to a pieced pillowtop to make a handmade nature scene.

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Sharpen your set-in piecing skills when making a bed-size quilt of Bride's Bouquet blocks. Then learn a clever shortcut that uses fusible web and your sewing machine to get the look of needle-turn appliqué in the border.

Bridal Bouquet Wall Hanging

Instead of appliquéing swags on a border, quilt tester Laura Boehnke achieved a similar look by fussy-cutting setting triangles from a printed wreath panel from Rachel Pellman's Homecoming collection for P&B Textiles. Replacing the setting square with an extra Bride's Bouquet block allowed that block to be the center of attention in Laura's version.

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If you can dream it, you can appliqué it as these funky flowers illustrate. They may not appear in nature, but they look right at home on a contemporary quilt that will brighten any space.

Funky Fusible Flowers Wall Hanging

Craft a wall hanging reminiscent of an oil painting with the April Showers Bring Sunflowers collection by Art of Possibility Studios for FreeSpirit. To create a funky frame around the appliqué, quilt tester Laura Boehnke combined prints and tone-on-tones for the inner border units. A multicolor outer border unifies the look.

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If you're hooked on the look of crochet, here's how to get it with fabric rather than yarn. Craft each scrappy block from strip-pieced squares in six contrasting prints.Buy this quilt pattern here.

Scrappy Strip-Pieced Squares

Enhance the scrappy feel of Granny Squares with 1930s reproduction prints from Darlene Zimmerman's Paper Doll collection for Robert Kaufman Fabrics. Quilt tester Laura Boehnke focused attention on the quilt's windowpane center by sashing the blocks in white and using white for the outer ring of each block.

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Rickrack latticework, printed letters, and pieced blocks team up to create a bold and bright nursery wall hanging that's both engaging and educational.

Halloween Rickrack Wall Hanging

Wide green rickrack and Halloween-theme fabrics from the Spooktacular collection by Debbie Taylor-Kerman from Henry Glass & Co. give Argyle Alphabet spooky flair. "This pattern is great for novelty fabrics," quilt tester Laura Boehnke says. "Save the more involved prints for the squares, and reserve simpler prints, such as polka dots, for the Square-in-a-Square blocks."

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Appliqué and quilt at the same time using a quick fusible method. Let the whimsical blooms inspire your own garden of quilted designs.

Big Blooms Wall Hanging

Instead of layering three circle appliqués, quilt tester Laura Boehnke showcased a large fussy-cut flower in the center of each bloom. For extra pops of color, she used different fabrics for each flower's buds. Black machine-blanket-stitching around each appliqué coordinates with the black prints in the border, petals, and G circles. Fabrics are from the Jane Collection and Splash basics from Blank Quilting.

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To celebrate the birth of Abraham Lincoln, an Illinois designer surrounds a pieced cabin with furrowed fields of reproduction fabrics for a fat-quarter-friendly quilt.

Holiday House-Block Throw

A rustic cabin gets a garden cottage makeover with flirty florals from the Fancy Hill Farm collection by Robyn Pandolph for RJR Fabrics. To achieve the look of a climbing rose in the border, quilt tester Laura Boehnke surrounded a contrasting middle border with inner and outer borders cut from a wavy floral vine print.

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Brown sugar hues and a bounty of reds are sprinkled throughout a tantalizing throw featuring Snowball and Four-Patch blocks.Get the free quilt pattern here.

Fussy-Cut Panel Throw

By widening Apple Crisp's outer borders to 10-1/2", quilt tester Laura Boehnke made way for under-the-sea-themed panels from Julie Paschkis' Oceanica collection for In The Beginning. Similar blue prints in the Snowball and triple Four-Patch blocks create limited contrast in the quilt center, which places more attention on the border's detailed fabric.

Go to the free quilt pattern.