Nine garden creatures and blooms repeat across a clean ivory background in a slow rainbow: tulips, roses, and daisies mixed with a bee, ladybugs, a butterfly, a caterpillar, a snail, and a frog. Each creature is built from one coordinated group of fabrics, so the same nine blocks restate themselves in one color family after another. On the large sample the palette drifts from coral and pink through orange and gold into chartreuse, teal, and aqua, and the whole quilt reads like a busy backyard caught in the middle of summer. Every piece is a rotary-cut square or rectangle, so the finished quilt looks far more intricate than it is to sew.

What the Pattern Includes

This listing is for the printed paper pattern only. Fabric, batting, backing, and notions are not included.

The booklet includes complete cutting and assembly instructions with full-color diagrams for all nine blocks, plus fabric guides for both finished sizes. A chart showing the fabrics used in the sample quilts is on page 2, with an alternate Bella Solids chart for anyone who wants to match the cover. Construction is conventional patchwork throughout, with no templates and no paper piecing.

What You'll Need

The colorful block fabrics carry the design, organized into roughly monochromatic color groups that each run light to dark. Fat quarters (18" x 21") are the basis for the blocks:

• Small Quilt (46" x 46"): 12 fat quarters in 2 color groups
• Large Quilt (68" x 86"): 36 fat quarters in 6 color groups

Each group makes one of every block. Beyond the block fabrics, plan for a small amount of dark eye fabric (1/8 yard for either size), background fabric (2-1/4 yards for the Small Quilt, 5 yards for the Large), plus backing and binding. A fabric marking tool is needed for the diagonal seams, and fabric should be at least 42" wide. The Large Quilt is also sized to work from a single fat quarter bundle. Full yardages for both sizes are printed on the pattern.

Perfect For

• Confident quilters ready for an involved, high-piece-count sampler
• Fat quarter collectors looking for a project that uses a whole bundle
• Anyone who enjoys sorting fabrics into color groups and watching a gradient come together
• A bright, cheerful quilt for a child's room, a sunroom, or a spring and summer display

Why You'll Love This Pattern

Busy Backyard sits at the top of Elizabeth Hartman's own scale, rated Skill Level 5 of 5, and the repeating structure is what keeps a project this size manageable. Because the same nine blocks come up in every color group, a big quilt is built from a short, familiar menu rather than a constant stream of new techniques. The work is in the volume and the organization. Ordering the groups warm to cool, or light to dark, is what builds the gradient, so the finished rainbow turns out as bold or as subtle as you make it.

Each block is pieced with straight and diagonal seams, the diagonal ones marked with a simple fabric marker. The pieces are small, so accurate cutting and a steady quarter-inch seam matter, but the full-color diagrams carry each block and minor variation does not undermine the finished effect.

The same pattern reads very differently depending on the palette. A warm coral-and-orange run feels like one quilt; a full spectrum feels like another. The blocks stay clean and graphic either way, which makes it as much a wall quilt as an everyday one.

Product Details

• Brand: Elizabeth Hartman
• Item #: EH089
• Designer: Elizabeth Hartman
• Category: Quilting Pattern
• Skill Level: Skill Level 5 of 5 (Elizabeth Hartman's rating). A large number of pieces, many of them small, using the same basic patchwork techniques throughout. The challenge is the piece count and organization, not new technique. Recommended for quilters comfortable with rotary cutting and accurate patchwork piecing.
• Technique: Standard Machine Sewing, Conventional Patchwork
• Finished Sizes: 68" x 86" Large Quilt | 46" x 46" Small Quilt
• Format: Printed Paper Pattern
• Made in the United States