The Evelyn Quilt in Allegory

For my third Evelyn Quilt sample, I used Allegory by Anna Maria Textiles. I knew I wanted to make a project with a collection that packed a punch, and this was the perfect excuse to buy this collection. It is PHENOMENAL!!!

Anna Maria's fabrics always have so much color and visual interest. Since the plus blocks in the Evelyn Quilt are fairly large, they give those bigger prints enough space to show off instead of chopping them into tiny pieces.

Choosing the Fabrics

The Evelyn Quilt is fat quarter friendly, and Allegory gave me a great mix of colors and prints to spread throughout the quilt. The pattern requires 11 FQs, and this collection has a few more than that, so I picked the ones that seemed to work best together and set the rest aside for future use (which came sooner than I expected).

For the background and accent fabrics, I wanted something that would give all of those busy prints a little structure.

Background Fabric: Pure Solids in White Linen
Accent Fabric: FreeSpirit Designer Essential Solids in Mineral

With a collection this colorful, contrast is especially important. The background separates the plus blocks from each other, while the accent fabric creates the repeating squares between them. I really like having those consistent fabrics running through the quilt because they give your eye somewhere to rest between all of the florals and color.

Finishing Up the Quilt

For the backing fabric, I used a wideback Anna Maria print from her Indelible collection. Like a lot of designers, prints from different Anna Maria collections work pretty well together, and this print is beautiful, so I love how it turned out.

The binding was an adventure! I didn't have a print in my stash that was an obvious choice, and I wanted a chance to use more of the prints from the collection, so I decided to do something different. I picked out four leftover FQs from the collection and made a scrappy bias binding (you can see a little more about that in this Reel).

Since using FQs for this method meant that I would end up with more seams in my binding, I decided to curve the corners. I absolutely love how the quilt turned out. There are some projects where I think this type of binding would be too busy, but it was perfect for this one.

I am so happy that I made this version because it shows another side of the Evelyn Quilt. If you have been saving a stack of big, colorful prints because you weren't sure what to do with them, this might be your excuse to finally cut into them.

If you would like to make an Evelyn Quilt just like this, you can find Allegory available now and pick up your copy of the pattern in my shop!