Unique fussy cut options with Banyan Batiks Baralla Collection

Happy Tuesday, everyone! Welcome back! I hope you all had a fun time shopping for your beautiful new Banyan Batiks Baralla fabrics which I introduced you to in yesterday’s post, which are available in 7 sumptuous color palettes; Crimson Red, Pink Slate, Emerald Red, Magenta, Spring Leaf,Midnight Gold and Exotic Purple.

For this quick and easy disappearing 9 patch quilt, I selected fabrics from the Crimson Red, Emerald Red and Pink Slate color palettes, but you can select from whichever you desire. The hardest part of this whole project is choosing the fabrics as they’re all so gorgeous. I definitely want to get my hands on the Magenta and Exotic Purple for my next quilt!

Cutting Directions

Unfold each of the nine ½ yard pieces of fabric so they’re the full 44” wide across your cutting table in order to get three 12½” blocks out of it. I save time by layering before cutting. Typically the 45mm rotary cutters will cut 4-6 layers of fabric and the 60mm will cut 6-8 layers. Please check out my previous QUILTsocial post for more on rotary cutters.

Since most square up rulers are 12½”, it’s easiest to use one of those as you simply cut around it.

If you’re new to quilting, a 12½” square up ruler is one of those indispensable tools you’ll use over and over again, so it’s worth investing in a good one with easy to read measurements. I’ve had my Omnigrid rulers, and Sew Easy rulers for example, since I first started quilting 28 years ago. I’ve dropped them easily twice that number and they’ve never broken, so it pays to buy quality.

As you lay out your fabric, decide whether to cut square with the grain or square with the print, as sometimes they aren’t the same, as in the photo below. Typically I’d almost always want to cut with the straight grain of the fabric, but, given the stability and quality of the Banyan Batiks Baralla fabric, and the forgiving, easy construction methods of this quilt, cutting a little off the grain in order to line-up a straight line with the print of the fabric isn’t a big deal.

It isn’t a big deal either way, as after all, it’s your quilt and you can do what you want, but I mention it as I found a lot of inspiration in many of the prints in the Banyan Batiks Baralla Collection. For example, the graphic floral print which comes in many of the color palettes, as seen below, was ultimately the inspiration for this whole quilt. I didn’t want to cut this up into tiny pieces as I worried of losing much of its hand-printed impact, and that it looked like it was pieced from smaller blocks, so I kept each piece big. I can create different prints, different effects, using the same piece of fabric simply by where I choose to cut.

The same is true of the modeled floral print.

The print fabric screamed fussy cut to me! I made a window template out of tracing paper, so I could clearly see where I’d position my ruler to cut. Sometimes it’s a little hard on my eyes to try to focus on the numbers on my ruler over a multi-color, busy print fabric, so I find this window method easier, and only takes a minute to prepare.

Be sure to join me tomorrow when I’ll have lots of fun playing with the layout of this quick and easy disappearing 9 patch quilt with Banyan Batiks Baralla collection. For those of you who aren’t familiar with this type of block, you’re in for a treat!

Happy Cutting!