Nightingale Quilt - using the Heirloom bundle

Written by Brittany Lloyd

I am thrilled to share about the second of five quilts that I made with my new "Heirloom" bundle with Robert Kaufman! If you haven’t yet read about this bundle or seen all of the pretty fabric combinations you can make with it, be sure to check out this blog post.

While all of my patterns are near & dear to my heart, Nightingale holds a special place since its inspiration is based from the love of my nursing career. If you want to read a little bit more about that and the inspiration behind this quilt, this blog post has all of the details. While nursing is not part of my daily life anymore, I think often of all the healthcare workers that are part of this quilting community. I love that so many have found Lo & Behold Stitchery through this pattern and we can all share this beautiful connection through quilting.

Nightingale is fat quarter, 1/4 yard and 1/2 yard friendly. The quilt blocks show off big cuts of fabric and one of my favorite parts is mixing and matching the colors, textures, and prints to create a variety of beautiful blocks. I made this sample in the large throw size which is 4 x 5 blocks and measures at 60" x 75" finished. It's the perfect size!

Since this bundle has several different textures of fabric, for the background, I wanted to add to that and use something that had some extra texture as well. I landed on Robert Kaufman's Essex (which is a mix of cotton and linen) in the color Linen. Like my Heirloom Knitted Star background fabric, this was a fun change of pace and complimented the Heirloom bundle so beautifully. It made it feel a lot brighter compared to my first Heirloom quilt.

For this quilt, I used the following fabrics:

Heirloom FQ Bundle (I used 20 of the 24 fabrics)
Background: Essex E014-308 LINEN (if you're looking for a Kona substitute, Snow would be perfect!)
Backing: Kona Cypress K001-1474
Binding: Kona Dragon Fruit K001-1841

One thing to note is that many of these fabrics are slightly thicker than traditional quilting cotton. You might need to slightly decrease your seam allowance to account for that.

It felt risky to include the striped fabrics from the bundle in this quilt, but here lately I've felt the pull to just let perfection go...so I decided to include them on a whim. Now that everything has all come together, it's my favorite part of this quilt! I love that it adds just a little bit of interest and pattern to the quilt without it feeling completely overwhelming. (NOTE: If you want to leave out the strips, you have enough FQs in the bundle to substitute them out of the quilt. But really, I'm glad they're in there!)

After getting the top pieced together, I sent it off to Sara at Stitch Lab Quilting! We ended up choosing Best Fronds by Longarm League. If you've been around a little while, this pantograph is one of my favorites...I also used it on my Getaway Cover Quilt. The fronds create some subtle movement and add to the summery feeling that I got when piecing it all together!

For the backing, I chose something unexpected but surprisingly fitting, Kona Cypress! I loved pulling this pop of color from the bundle and using it as the backing. I used Kona Dragon Fruit as the binding which is such a beautiful pink shade that plays perfectly with the Cypress. The warm/cool backing and binding made everything all come together just as I imagined. Does anyone else get Barbie vibes with this??