Anne of Green Gables quilt
I’ve always loved Anne of Green Gables, so when Penny Rose Fabrics released an entire collection dedicated to P.E.I.’s whimsical redhead, I knew I had to make an Anne quilt. A “quilt of shining colours,” as Anne might call it.
I pawed through the bolts and narrowed it down to my eight favourites: two greens, three blues and three pinks. Most were printed with flowers (my favourite), but one had teacups (another favourite) and another was printed with delicately scripted quotes from the books.
Now, I’m often asked how to figure out how much fabric to buy when you’re making a quilt. Luckily, I’ve developed a system that’s been working well.
People who sew use a term called a “fat quarter,” which refers to a quarter-metre of fabric if you cut it into squares instead of strips. Fabric stores even sell pre-cut “fat quarters” because they’re handy for making small projects. If you were to buy a quarter-metre off a bolt, it would be a long skinny strip instead of one fat square. Make sense?
Since I was making the quilt for our guest room, which has a double bed, I knew I could get by with half a metre of each fabric — four metres of fabric, total. Since I’d cut each piece of fabric in half, it was like I was buying 16 fat quarters.
So if you want an easy formula for making a quilt that fits a double bed, either buy 16 fat quarters or eight half-metres of different fabrics. (If you only want to use four fabrics, just buy one metre of each.)
Once I’d washed and dried the fabric — always important if you’re making something that will be washed and dried in the future — I roughly cut each piece of fabric down the middle, giving me 16 fat quarters.
I could have stopped here and sewn them into a 4×4 grid of squares to make a patchwork-style quilt, but I wanted to go a step further and turn these squares into what are called “half-square triangles” or “HSTs.” (They’re easier and more fun than taxes, I promise.)
I ironed the squares well, then drew a diagonal line through the middle of each (using an iron-away fabric pen) and cut them into 32 triangles. Then it was just a matter of matching up different triangles — pink against green, blue against pink, etc. — by putting the good sides together.
Once I had a stack of doubled-up triangles, I sewed the pairs together along one side — giving me 16 squares again, except this time each square was two different colours. They were still rough squares, so the next step was using my clear square quilting ruler to trim the edges and make them all even.
The finished squares were trimmed to be 18″ wide/tall.
When I sewed the 16 squares together using a 1/4″ seam allowance, the squares measured 17 1/2″ across.
I sewed the 16 squares together in a 4×4 grid, so now I had a quilt top. I sandwiched it together with a layer of batting and plain white prewashed cotton for backing, and added a zillion pins to keep the layers neatly together.
I love quilting by hand, so I spent a few weeks of evenings stitching through the layers with a needle and white quilting thread. I’d used a metre-stick and an iron-away pen to draw triangles inside each triangle of the quilt, which made it fast to quilt because it was just a bunch of straight lines.
When the quilting was finished, I bought a little more of the deep pink Anne fabric, cut it into skinny strips and sewed the strips together to make the binding. Basically you line up the binding and the edge of the quilt (right sides together) and machine-stitch all the way around …
… then you wrap the binding around to the back and hand-stitch it in place there.
The Anne of Green Gables quilt is perfect in our guest room. The colours are light and cheerful, and it goes perfectly with the pastel-painted furniture and light greige walls. I even had enough scraps left over to make a tiny accent pillow! I think Anne would have approved.
xo Heather
31 Comments on “Anne of Green Gables quilt”
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Heather's Handmade Life 
Love the Anne of Green Gables bed cover. Would like to make one for a twin bed
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Thank you, Brenda! It would be sweet in a twin size. I’d probably do a 3×4 instead of a 4×4 if I was doing a twin-sized quilt.
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I’m in tge USA where can I purchase these fabrics
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I believe it was a limited run, and they have a newer run available now (slightly different fabrics). But some quilters have had luck finding these fabrics on Etsy!
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Splendid! Anne Shirley is one of my favorite heroines! Thank you for the Green Gables pattern.
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Anne is wonderful, isn’t she? 🙂
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This is beautiful! It doesn’t look like Penny Rose carries this collection anymore. 😦 I’ll have to keep an eye out for similar fabrics so I can make my own some day! 🙂
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Thank you, Mal! I hope Penny Rose brings the collection back!
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What do I think? I think it’s beautiful. I never made a quilt, so I hope when I do start to quilt I will be able to make one as lovely as yours. Thank you.
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Thank you, Barbara! xo I really hope you try quilting — it’s easy and SO much fun!
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Can this be adjusted to later came squares?
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Hmm, I’m not sure what that means, Lisa?
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Absolutely BEAUTIFUL!!! We are in love with this book! I have a preteen that will be making as her first sewing project with no help. Can you please tell me what the size of each block should be in inches? We have found some very delicate floral prints that we are hoping can do justice to this quilt.
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Thank you, Leslie! That’s wonderful that your preteen will be making her own quilt! When I made the half-square triangles, I trimmed them down and they measured about 18.5″ — so the finished quilt shows them as 17.5″ after the seam allowances.
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Don’t know if my earlier transmission happened so I’m sending again. Would love to get this pattern. Please tell me how to obtain a copy so I can make it for my granddaughter who loves Anne of Green Gable.
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Hi Tammy! There isn’t a pattern per se, just this tutorial that explains how I made the cuts and what I did. Hope that helps!
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I love this pattern and would like to make it for my granddaughter who is an “Anne of Green Gables” fan.
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Hi there! There isn’t a pattern per se, just this tutorial that explains how I made the cuts and what I did. Hope that helps!
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Your link for tutorial video isn’t working. Can you please repost it? I so want to try this pattern or method. I just love it!
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Apologies! It looks like the newspaper took that column down since it was quite old. I’m going to put the video up on my Instagram soon, and then I’ll reshare the link!
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I like this quilt design very much but find the 70 x 70 size too small for a double sized bed. A double needs to be 84 x 90, so I need to buy more fabric and add another row and column to make it 5 x 5 squares.
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It is a bit small, if you like a long quilt that hangs well over the edges of the bed. I am not much of a measurer! 😉
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No worries! We all have our strengths and you are gifted at choosing colors, which is something I struggle with. My fabric choices coordinate and look great in the store but once I cut and piece…ehh. I welcome tips!
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Ha! Choosing colours/fabrics is my most FAVOURITE part of quilting. 🙂
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My mother read the book and when the Serie came on Netflix, in German!, I had to see it. The Intro and the music – you’re ahead of a century by the Band, Tragically Hip – was so fascinating.
Your quilt is beautiful. I would like to see the backside. Why don’t we ever see the backsides of quilts?
Best regards from Germany
Linda
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That’s a good question about the backside of quilts! I think it’s because they’re often a plain solid colour (usually white!) which isn’t that interesting. There isn’t a lot of choice when it comes to fabric that’s wide enough to cover the back of a quilt in one piece, so I know I often choose white, personally, since the other colour options clash with the quilt top.
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BTW – there are now quite a few fabrics that come in wide back widths. You can google wide back 108” to come up with options. Many quilting stores also carry selections.
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What did you use for backing?
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Just plain white quilting cotton!
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I love the way this pattern looks. Thanks so much so sharing it.
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