oakshott scandinavia + a bartow baby quilt

The lovely team at Sew Mama Sew recently sent me a bundle of fabrics from Oakshott Fabrics' Scandinavia collection. When they asked that I create something Scandinavian-inspired, I immediately thought of the interiors of Scandinavian homes I'd seen on Pinterest and Design*Sponge, and wanted to create something that would fit into those clean, modern spaces. When I received the stack of shot cottons, I experimented with a few different quilt blocks based on Scandinavian surface patterns---including improv curves and plus signs---but none of them seemed quite right.


While continuing to brainstorm ideas, the Bartow Quilt pattern by Carolyn Friedlander came to mind. The clean lines and simple layout of this free pattern for Robert Kaufman suggested to me that it would be right at home in a modern interior, so I set to work cutting strips from each of the pastel fabrics to create a baby quilt.

I used a combination of cream shot cotton and white cotton for the top's background, and I backed the quilt with a soft Melody Miller linen-cotton print that I picked up in Japan last year, which included many of the colors from the bundle: baby pink, lavender and mint green.


I used cream thread for the cross-hatch quilting, and I machine bound the quilt with leftover Oakshott scraps, using my newest favorite method for binding.


Many thanks to Sew Mama Sew and Oakshott Fabrics for this beautiful fabric bundle! I enjoyed working in a new-to-me color palette and taking on a fun challenge.


Be sure to check out the beautiful projects made from the same bundle of fabric by these other talented makers: 

Jessica Skultety from Quilty Habit
Jennifer Fullerton from Never Just Jennifer
Mary Kolb from Mary on Lake Pulaski
Casey York from The Studiolo
Deborah Fisher from Fish Museum and Circus

P.S. A winner was selected for the Modern Sampler Quilt pattern giveaway and announced in the last post. There's still time to grab a pattern from the Zakka Workshop store for 20% off with the code QUILTALONG, and sew your first block for the Modern Sampler Quilt Along by the end of the month!