Making My Own Urban Trek: Maximalist Summer Prints

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This president’s day weekend, I started my version of Urban Trek, from Heather Black’s Quilt-Along.  

The weekend’s weather was relatively warm and fine, but as the week progressed, the temperatures bottomed out and the snow came. And I stayed cozy and warm in my quilt room, dreaming of summer as I played with Mediterranean-inspired fabric.

Fabrics

In the quilt-along videos, Heather Black talked about how her quilt Urban Trek was inspired by a walk through her city. I thought about that; what memorable walks had I taken could inspire my own version of this quilt? How could I truly personalize this distinctive design, make it my own?

Heather worked with solids in her original design, and then with a mix of solids and prints from Spoonflower in her 3 quilts for the quilt-along.  (Do you have a favorite? I can’t decide.)

So, alright, how about I do the opposite? For my Urban Trek, I’d go ‘maximalist’: all prints, something very intense. Maybe floral?

And that’s when I remembered a ‘trek.’

Many years ago, I visited the island of Capri in southern Italy, and it may be the most perfect place I can imagine. White villas covered with bright pink and purple bougainvillea, a little girl’s coral-pink sundress against a blue-and-white tiled patio, lemon trees with glossy green leaves against a backdrop of the blue ocean… I thought of that long trek up from the shore to the top of the island, the area called Anacapri, and decided that was my not-so-Urban Trek.

On a whim, I searched Spoonflower for “bougainvillea,” because where else would I find fabric THAT specific except through Spoonflower? There were five pages of results—all designs from independent designers—based solely on the term “bougainvillea.”

The joyfulness of ‘bougalicious’ decided me. I never work with yellow, so that would be a fun new thing for me, and that print definitely qualified as ‘maximalist.’

Then I went a little crazy. Yellow gingham, blue tiles and stripes, a pop of green chevron, vibrant pink—how to tie it all together?

Planning

I love that Heather really talks about the design of her quilt in these videos, how all the elements and shapes, colors and texture play off one another.

She talked about how the stripes serve to move you through the quilt, and that horizontal stripes have a calming effect. She talked a lot about achieving balance.

I thought about balance and contrast, about how the stripes interacted with the curves, as I laid the fabrics out, planning. Would the pottery-style blue balance with the cheerful chaos of yellow floral? Would the vibrant pink actually calm things down?

I laid the fabrics out, arranging and rearranging, before marking my pattern. (I always use pencil to cross out the fabric references and write in my own; it’s too hard for me to read “orange” but think “blue.”)

Templates

My next step was templates. We learned from a quilter that the templates we originally had in the pattern were slightly off, so we e-mailed out fresh templates to everyone who had already signed up for Heather’s quilt-along, and updated the pattern.  So anyone who signs up before March 16, 2022 gets the corrected version from the get-go. (Phew! Thank you to the intrepid quilter who reported that error!)

When working with tiled templates, you overlap the pages along the dotted lines, and then tape the pages together. I found that the paper I’d printed on was a bit too thick to easily see. If you have a lightbox, it makes taping tiled templates much easier.

Some people are OK with paper templates, but I prefer using plastic templates. I taped the plastic sheets to the paper, and carefully traced the shape. Then I cut it out using a pair of dulled, micro-serrated scissors (Did you know micro-serrated scissors can dull? I didn’t.), and labeled it.

Labeling—so important. How many times have I given up and re-traced a template because I wasn’t sure which template was which? (You might also notice that I “labeled” my scissors, too, with a little charm.)

And now, to cut.

Cutting

Heather had some great advice about avoiding “elbows” in your strips by lining up the selvages in a particular way. And that tip also helps if you have a very directional print, like gingham or stripes, where your eye would immediately gravitate to anything off-kilter. 

Because Spoonflower custom prints each order, it’s a little different from other fabrics. If you order 2 yards, Spoonflower prints a 72” x 42” design on their Petal Signature Cotton (if that’s the fabric you ordered), leaving a wide, white border all around. So there’s a white strip on all four sides. Which is the selvage? The selvage is the tightly woven edge with the dots, designed to prevent the fabric from fraying.

I tell you this because I got a little confused, trying to fold my fabric for strips.

And because Spoonflower custom-prints each order, the fabric will feel stiffer than you’re probably used to. Spoonflower recommends that you wash your fabric before using it.

Personally, I recommend that you don’t wash the fabric. The stiffness from the ink is fabulous when cutting thin strips—like the 1-1/2” ones found in Urban Trek—as well as curves. It’s kind of like having pre-starched fabric.

But no amount of stiffness could save me from the fact that I am a hasty, eager sewer. When it came to the Drunkard’s Path curves, I was so excited to try out Heather’s technique for cutting curves with the help of a straight ruler, that I skipped my usual steps of taping the template to the fabric, and dove in with my standard rotary cutter.

And promptly chopped off a 1½” of fabric I really, really needed.

Breathe in, breathe out, and slow down. Get the right tools, I told myself, and be mindful of each step.

I got out the spinning mat and tape. I dug out my 16mm rotary cutter. I slowed down, and paused to re-position myself as I cut the curves.

Slow it down…I pressed the fabric before I cut strips. I double-checked my measurements. I made clean-up cuts as I went.

As I cut pieces, I placed them on the design wall rather than sewing it all together. I want to make sure my maximalist choices DO actually work together, because this is an unusual approach for me.

The yellow bougainvillea went up. Then the vibrant pink. And then the blue-and-white tile print. The yellow-and-white gingham is ready on my cutting table.

The temperature dropped further on the old, battered thermometer outside, and Miette (my 22-year-old cat) won’t budge from her spot in front of the space heater.

But on my design wall, as the blue tile pattern meets the bougainvillea and the blushing pink, a Mediterranean summer has begun to blossom…

Make sure you sign up for Heather Black’s quilt-along before March 16, 2022. You’ll get her award-winning Urban Trek pattern and access to her videos (GREAT tips and techniques!) absolutely free, and you’ll be entered for a chance to win fabric from Spoonflower!

Stay warm and happy quilting!