Some quilts come together quickly. Others take… more than ten years.
This quilt was meant to be a wedding gift for my dear friends Gøril and Lars, who married several years ago. The plan was ambitious (and heartfelt): a full bed size quilt, handmade, just for them. The problem? Life happened. We moved to Tønsberg, I lost my sewing room, all my fabric went into boxes – and those boxes stayed closed for more than a decade. The quilt existed mostly as a quiet promise in the back of my mind. And yes, I felt a little guilty about that unfinished, non-existing quilt for a long time, though the recipients never mentioned it.
Fast forward to this fall. These very patient friends bought a summer house in Larvik, Norway, very close to the sea, on a street whose name translates loosely to the «Captain’s Yard», a gentle nod to Larvik’s strong maritime and sailor traditions. A cozy, small wooden house with a low ceiling, white painted wooden walls, a tiny garden and the salty ocean just a few steps away. We helped them move in. Suddenly, the timing felt exactly right. If there ever was a moment for a handmade summer quilt, this was it!
We both raided our fabric stashes for blues, whites and creams, and I only added a couple of new blue fabrics. There are vintage fabrics in this quilt (hello white daisies on blue!), and even a piece from one of Gøril’s old shirts that she used to wear back when we became friends around the turn of the millennium. That detail alone gives the quilt so much meaning. It’s not just fabric; it’s memory.
I had already been wanting to test the Knitty Leaves quilt pattern in a new size and with a different color palette, and this project was the perfect excuse. The pattern lends itself beautifully to a scrappy look. I went for scrappy white and cream leaves on a scrappy blue background – a soft coastal quilt with an easy, relaxed boho vibe.
Because most of the blues are light to medium tones, and some of the whites lean slightly blue as well, the contrast is low. Up close, the quilt reads almost like a random patchwork of squares. Step back, and the leaf motif slowly appears.
Like the other quilts in the Knitty series, this one is made entirely from squares, pieced using the web piecing method and assembled in sections. That makes a large quilt surprisingly manageable to sew. While the pattern includes an ombré colorway, I chose the two-color option here and fully embraced the scrappy approach. Because of the large size of the quilt, I sent it off to Sy-snacks in Trondheim to have it longarmed. The swirling panto adds softness and movement to the quilt.
The photos of the quilt on the bed were taken by Gøril herself — thank you for letting me use them. Seeing the quilt in its new home feels incredibly satisfying after all these years. Thank you both for being such patient gift recipients! This one waited a long time – but I think it found exactly the right place in the end!
The pattern to the Knitty leaves quilt is available for purchase as a downloadable PDF from my shop.