Ruby Roads Quilt

I would love to show you my latest quilt finish today, a quilt I am calling Ruby Roads.

The story of how Ruby Roads came to be...

My local traditional guild, the Foothills Piecemakers Quilt Guild, hosts an annual quilt challenge. This year, we had to reach into a bucket, pull out a random letter, and make a quilt based on a block starting with that letter. I picked the letter "R".

I pulled out my favorite quilt block book, "The Quilter's Album of Patchwork Patterns: 4050 Pieced Blocks for Quilters" (affiliate link) by Jinny Beyer. From there I just went page by page skimming the blocks starting with the letter R until a block called Ruby Roads caught my eye. Ruby Roads is an older block dating back to the early 1900's. I changed the block a little to arrive at my block.

My cousin is having her first baby (a girl) in just a few weeks so I figured that my Ruby Roads quilt could serve two purposes: my guild challenge entry and my cousin's baby quilt.

I thought that putting the Ruby Roads block on-point gave the block a great (and totally different) look. Below is a picture of the block set horizontally on the left and on point (at a 45 degree angle) on the right.

Next, I added some half blocks along the edge of the quilt design and some sashing between the blocks to give them a little separation and breathing room.

Now that I had my quilt design set, I got to pick fabrics :)

I had just gotten a fat quarter bundle of Les Fleurs by Rifle Paper Co for Cotton & Steel and its delicate florals and prints along with its feminine but not overly girly color palette seemed perfect for the design.

Once the quilt top was finished I basted it with a backing of a Tula Pink print called Pit Crew in Orange Crush from her Slow and Steady line I had. I have a bunch of yardage of the print and the pink matched the pink from the Les Fleurs print almost perfectly. Here is a quick picture of the finished quilt top after basting.

I had a difficult time figuring out how to quilt the quilt. I first was considering a dense, custom quilting design, but due to time constraints and the desire for the finished quilt to be soft and cuddly for the new baby, I went with an all over paisley/swirl kind of design. I think that it adds great texture without taking away from the piecing. I used a soft white (2021) Aurifil in 50 wt for the quilting so that the stitches would blend into the quilt top.

I did enter Ruby Roads into the guild challenge. It did not win any awards, but I think that my cousin will love it. The quilt is packed up and ready to mail out to my cousin to welcome her new baby girl!