Tutorial Throwback Thursday - Refracted!!

It's Thursday and that means another Tutorial Throwback feature.  And today I am headed to Layton, Utah to teach at the Utah Quilt Festival ;)  Which made me think back to one of the very first time I taught at a quilt retreat.  It was the Panguitch Quilt Walk in 2013 and I taught my Refracted quilt that I had made in 2012.   And so today, it just seemed fitting to use this quilt for today's throwback . . . So here it is, my Refracted Quilt and I am super excited today to share all of the versions of this quilt I have made.

I absolutely loved making this quilt!! It is put together using an improvisational Stack and Whack method.  Which is so relaxing and freeing and I love that it makes all the blocks different ;)   And you don't have to worry about perfect seams or points, you can just sew and sew and it will be awesome no matter what, because you get to trim the block perfect when it is all pieced together ;)  So all you need is a stack of Fat Quarters and you can put this together in no time.   If you have never tried improvisational piecing, I highly recommend you try this quilt tutorial.  It really is so fun and a great way to try a new skill in quilting :)

And when it came time to quilt mine, I tried something new.   Echoed straight line quilting.   This was back on the home machine days and I did the quilting pretty dense, so as you can imagine, it took a while ;)  But while I was doing all that quilting, I actually made a little video on this quilting design, and you can see that at the end of the Refracted Quilt post ;)    The thing I love most about this quilting is that after I washed the quilt, it made it so snuggly good!!   I just love that ;) 

And then, I joined the Modern Mini quilt swap in 2013, and I had so much fun making the original Refracted quilt I thought, why not try and make it a Mini.   And adding in a rainbow, well does it get better than that :)   So here is my Refracted Rainbow Mini ;)  I made the blocks in the exact same method, only added one more piece in each block, and of course, started with a much smaller square. This was so much fun to make.  I just love tiny piecing, and tiny improvisational piecing was a blast!!! 

And speaking of the quilting again, since this was a Modern Mini Challenge, I really tried to keep with a Modern feel in the quilting.  So I did a Spectrum of colors quilted out from the center of each block until it ran into the frame of the next block.  I think it really made for a cool quilting design and I love how the color threads popped on the black background ;)   This was such a fun way to change up the original design!!!! 

And right after sending off my mini, I realized that my Refracted Quilt class that I spoke of at the beginning of this post was coming up fast.   I decided I wanted to do a demo on the Improvisational cutting in class.  Which meant I was going to be making sample blocks.   And wouldn't you know, my twin sister was expecting a little boy and a baby quilt would be just perfect for sample blocks.   So I used my treasured Pure Fat Quarters by Sweetwater for my samples and as soon as class was over, I put the blocks into this Cute Baby Refracted quilt for my sister.   The blocks are made 5 at a time, so I put the one extra block into the backing of the quilt :)

And this quilt turned out to be extra special because it was a comfort in a difficult time.   My sister had her sweet little boy,  but my nephew David had a rough go to start out.  He had to have open heart surgery and spent the first part of his life in Primary Children's.  I was grateful to be able to visit my Sister and her family and bring this little quilt full of hugs and kisses, hopes and prayers ;)   And it is still hanging on David's wall today, and David is doing great!!!  

So as you can see, this Refracted quilt has gotten a lot of love in the past and there are a lot of memories tied up in those blocks ;)    I am so happy to be reminded of how much I love this quilt!!  I am really loving that about these Tutorial Throwback Thursday's!!!  It is just so wonderful to share the story behind these designs ;) 

I hope you have enjoyed today's Tutorial Throwback Thursday!!!    To make your own Refracted Quilt  quilt  just click on any of the quilt name links for the free step by step tutorial.   And when you are done, I would love to see your quilt!!  You can email me a picture at happyquiltingmelissa@gmail.com, post it to social media with #happyquiltingwithmc  or or add it to my flickr group here ;)  I can't wait to see your Refracted Quilts!!!

Thanks for popping in today and have a very Happy Quilting Day!!!