My friends announced in February that they were pregnant with twin girls and I knew I had to get going on some quilts if they were to be ready for the babies’ arrival in August. I jumped at the chance to do a little experiment that has been on my mind lately…to play with two different patterns but using the same fabrics in both.

I knew I wanted to use traditional block patterns but with bright contemporary fabric colours and prints so I decided to create one quilt using a churn and dash block and the other with a variable star block pattern.

Churn and Dash Block, Variable Star Block

Both blocks contain a central square in the middle and triangles that frame the corners, but each retains its own distinct look. For the star block I decided to randomly sew the triangles onto the square without any thought for colour coordinated combinations. Alternatively I decided that to do the same for the churn and dash would make it too chaotic for the eye to follow the underlying pattern. Instead, while I did randomly choose what fabric I was going to use for each individual block, the triangles were always consistently the same, giving me the freedom to make the rectangular frames act as the random element in the block. The white pieces of the quilt came from two different fabrics and they were also constructed without any thought to how they sat next to each other throughout the quilts.

Two central squares using the same fabric, showcasing how these blocks mirror each other while still staying distinct to their own block patterns.

I really wanted to see how two different patterns using the same fabrics would compare to each other and I found that in many ways the quilts were able to mirror each other as a set but still have a distinct enough difference that the twins were not getting the same quilt.

A surprising element when constructing these quilts manifested itself in the various fabrics I used. I chose a lot of fabrics with the same colour elements in them but without foresight to how they would stand out within the blocks, especially when observed from a distance. Two of my fabrics were very subtle in that the pinks and blues were quite light and delicate and seemed to get lost against the very active nature of the other fabrics. In the image below, note how these fabrics get lost in the overall pattern, specifically where some of the triangles seem to be missing. I quite like this in that it adds movement and action, especially in the variable star pattern – almost as if the stars were twinkling, but this effect was purely accidental. Happy accidents!

The two quilts side by side.

I am happy with how these turned out and it was a lot of fun to work with fabrics that were playful and bright and with block patterns that I have wanted to try for ages. Hopefully the girls will like them too!