Granny Patch Quilt Pattern - all the details!

Written by Brittany Lloyd

Meet Granny Patch! A modern patchwork take on the traditional crocheted granny square.

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I've had this design in my head and drafted on my computer for a few years now. I've played with it a little here and a little there and I decided last fall that this would be the first Lo & Behold pattern of 2023. Better yet, we would officially release it on my Granny's birthday, March 15th. This cozy, vintage inspired quilt evokes all the warm nostalgic feelings and is probably one of my favorite recent Lo & Behold quilt patterns. :) It's a mix and match type pattern so you have lots of opportunity to create different combinations and have fun with it. You're going to love sewing this together!

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One thing that I love about Granny Patch (if I do say so myself) is that the blocks are strip pieced, meaning you are NOT dealing with individual squares of fabric. Instead, you're sewing strips together in a certain order then cutting them apart to create the rows of your blocks. (Can I get an amen??) There are also nesting seams so you don't have to fuss or stress about everything perfectly lining up as you are sewing. It really is a fun block to assemble!

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I don't know about you, but I always love seeing crocheted afghans and blankets folded up on the back of a chair or at the foot of a bed. I wish I could say that I had an heirloom afghan that inspired this quilt, but after watching all seasons of Parks & Rec about 10 times, seeing one on the back of Ann's couch over and over definitely made me fall in love with the granny square. Then when we moved to Black Mountain and started leasing studio space above the Black Mountain Yarn Shop, I found myself surrounded by even more granny squares, which got me that much more excited about having a "granny square" inspired quilt. Since I shared about this design, I've had several of you reach out to share about your own heirloom granny square blankets, which has been so sweet to see. This quilt has turned into a nod to tradition and a marriage of both crochet and quilting. I LOVE it!

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The Granny Patch quilt pattern includes four sizes: Baby, Small Throw, Large Throw and Queen. Since the quilt is block based, you can add and subtract blocks as desired. You can also choose from using fat quarters, quarter yards, or half yards for this quilt...so there are lots of options!

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For the cover quilt, I created the Small Throw size, using (9) fat quarters. We have quilt kits for this exact quilt in our shop, found here!

Here's a list of the exact fabrics that I used:

Robert Kaufman Kona Solids:

Background- Roasted Pecan
Foreground- Gumdrop, Petunia, Grapemist, Lupine, Sassy Pink, Salmon, Valentine, Primrose and Coral

I really love how the Foreground fabrics play with the Roasted Pecan in this quilt. I wanted this quilt to be an explosion of color. You'll see with the other Granny Patch samples (more to come this week!), none of them are "safe" and predictable. When thinking about things that my granny made, she loved using color and very rarely (if ever?) created something neutral that was soft and muted. And the same is true when I think about granny square afghans...they normally have tons of color and vibrancy, and my goal was to lean into that so that the Granny Patch quilts had the same vibe as a vintage/ retro afghan.

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So then I started thinking about what makes something feel retro. Is it the colors? Patterns? How it's styled? The wear and tear? All of the above? I realized that I had a sub-conscious 1960s vibe when I picked out the backing for this quilt. I remember telling Peter that I wanted to find something that felt older and classic with maybe an unexpected color. Kona Grapemist (the periwinkle/ light blue fabric) is probably my favorite part about the quilt top. It cools everything down, since the other shades are mostly warm and it gives an unexpected pop of color in an already colorful quilt. Since I really love that part of the quilt, I wanted to choose a backing that highlighted that blue shade.

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I landed on Eidelweiss Ode by Amy Sinibaldi for Art Gallery Fabrics. The circular floral design gave me all the retro Pyrex vibes. Perfect!

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I sent it off to Sarah of Stitch Lab Quilting and we both searched for the perfect 1960s floral that we could find and after a lot of back and forth, we landed on Daisy Daze #3 by Karlee Porter. The other Daisy Daze pantographs are adorable as well. I just used one of them in my last quilt, found here!

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When I got the quilt back from Sarah, I was SO smitten with how it turned out! The gold thread that had a slight sheen to it, the density of the flowers...it all turned out even better than I could've imagined! Don't you just love it when that happens?

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All along, I thought that I would use Grapemist as the binding, but when I tried it out, I just wasn't loving it for some reason. I think since the backing has so much blue, I wanted to bring in another color to show up on the back of the quilt. Kona Petunia was the lucky winner, and it really does frame out the quilt nicely.

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We'll have this quilt (and many others!) displayed at our first Open House in the new studio space in a few weeks! If you're local to the Black Mountain, NC area (or willing to travel) we'd love to see you! Find more details here!

Oh! And fun news: we have Granny Patch stickers!! These were such a hit last month at QuiltCon, so we couldn't help but to create a few. You can find all of our stickers here, but here are the two Granny Patch ones. :)

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Leaning into the retro theme, I wanted my next Granny Patch sample to have a 1970s velvet couch vibe. I'll be sharing about that quilt tomorrow, so be sure to check back then. :)

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I hope you enjoyed reading about Lo & Behold's latest pattern! Go grab it in the shop while it's on sale and happy sewing!

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