Bricks and Bunnies Series

These are my Bricks and Bunnies quilts. The bunny is from a Bunny Hill Designs pattern (Binkies on Broadway) which I haven't made yet. Instead I kidnapped that bunny to applique over the bricks that I sewed together and staggered over the quilts.




The key to (and the absolute funnest part) of Bricks and Bunnies is the fabric choice. Fabric choice is my favorite part of quilting, hands down. This is where you can really make a project your very own one-of-a-kind piece, so have fun with it! I imagine there are myriad ways to go about choosing your perfect fabrics. I generally try to get an idea of what color scheme I want to go with. I might have one particular fabric in mind and work off of that, or I might just have a color or set of colors in mind. Then I go upstairs and look through all of my fabrics (and I have a fair amount of fabric in my stash, so this process can take awhile!) I pull out any fabric that I think I might even slightly want to use. I usually end up with a decently-sized pile of fabric to narrow down. I am generally quite decisive at this stage, too, going through each fabric one more time and giving it a quick yes or no. There are very few that I agonize over, and this I can't really explain. I just know what I like, and I know what I don't, and it's difficult to articulate a process that is much more instinct than anything else.



In both Bricks and Bunnies quilts, I chose my fabrics and then cut my "bricks" with different directionalities, so some of the striped bricks had stripes going horizontally, and some were oriented vertically. I thought this would give the quilts a lot of visual interest, and I was really pleased with the results. I like to make the binding and the bunnies out of fabrics that are not otherwise in the quilt. In the blue/green Bricks and Bunnies quilt I ended up using a navy fabric that has found its way into a lot of projects I've made. I love the way it turned out. The Easter Bricks and Bunnies quilt has light green corduroy bunnies and binding. I hadn't worked with corduroy in a quilt before, so it was a new experience. The color wasn't ideal - it was a little light - but I still really like the end product. The Easter Bricks and Bunnies quilt also has a pieced backing. The backing is made up of three of my favorite fabrics in the quilt. I love it!



I've never been a fan of using collections of fabrics to make a project. I like to pick and choose one fabric here, another there. These quilts are perfect for honing your fabric choosing techniques. Bricks and Bunnies are my own way of playing with fabric and color. I know I will make more in the future, because I just love them so much and they are too fun to make.