Creating Coordinating Quilts

I’m a big fan of coordinating, or companion quilts. Quilts that work well together in a room but aren’t exactly the same. Quilts that use the same fabric collection but different patterns or styles. In my mind, I always call these sister quilts. I grew up with one older sister, and she’s an amazing person. Kind, generous, thoughtful, always willing to help. She’s the quintessential older sister and I’m so lucky to have her. We are, however, very different people with very different personalities. Funnily enough, because we also don’t look very much alike, growing up people were always surprised to hear we were sisters. Ha!

Whenever I create coordinating quilts, they always make me think of my sister. 10 year old me would have been delighted to have a quilt that matches with one my older sister had, while my older sister would have been thankful that they were, indeed, slightly different.

Usually my desire to create coordinating quilts comes from my desire to use up my fabric scraps. Although I like to use up all my scraps, I’ve found that it works best for me to come up with projects that use scraps up right away instead of throwing them in a bin later. So, usually the first quilt is created using a pattern and the second is an improv quilt that uses up the scraps.

Inkling/Improv Coordinating Quilts:

For example, I made an Inkling quilt using the Posy fabric line, then used the leftover pieces from the fat quarters along with lots of coordinating solids from my stash to create a second quilt! I have a whole blog post dedicated to these quilts along with lots of details on each!

Nordic Star/Wonderie Coordinating Quilts:

Creating coordinating quilts is easy with the Nordic Star quilt pattern, which has instructions for creating a second quilt, Wonderie! I love that the two quilts work well together and definitely coordinate but each are slightly different. Learn more about Nordic Star & Wonderie.

Although Wonderie is smaller than Nordic Star, because it uses up the scraps, you can make it bigger if you have more fabric leftover. For the Unruly Nature version below, I added two more columns (6 extra blocks) to make the Wonderie quilt larger. I love the size it ended up being! I also used the same print to back both quilts but in different colorways. Both quilts got hand-quilted but with different color threads. I love that they have enough similarities to tie them together but each quilt shines in its own unique way.

With my Rifle Paper Holiday version of Nordic Star/Wonderie, I planned it out so I would have enough scraps leftover for a Starlite quilt as well. Starlite is a great scrap buster since it uses up little pieces, so the three quilts will work nicely together in a room. I decided on a different background fabric for Starlite so that there was enough visual interest between the three quilts but they still worked well together.

Graffiti Hearts/Improv Hearts Coordinating Quilts:

And finally, my Graffiti Hearts quilt! I created a coordinating quilt using the scraps from Graffiti Hearts and all the leftover fabrics I had in my stash. I call this second quilt “Improv Hearts” since all the background was improv pieced from scraps. To me, improv is a lot of fun and very freeing, so this quilt was a blast to create! I decided to give it a piano key border to make it slightly bigger. Both of these quilts are going to get hand quilted and both have the same backing fabric! I love that they match without being an exact match! If you want ideas on how to use up your Graffiti Hearts offcuts, check out this post.

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