February 20, 2019

Neapolitan Quilt with Riley Blake and Cricut

This beautiful Neapolitan Quilt is made with Riley Blake fabrics and the Cricut Maker! Quilting is so much more fun when all you have to do is sew it together. My passion for quilting has been restored thanks to Riley Blake and Cricut.

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Neapolitan Quilt with Cricut Maker

Although this is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Cricut, the opinions and text are my own. For a complete list of disclosure rules, see the disclosures page.

My latest quilt was a fun project! All the pieces are cut on the Cricut Maker, which makes things go so much faster than they do with traditional quilting! It’s been awhile since I made a quilt, you may remember that the last one I made was also a Cricut Maker project.

There is nothing more satisfying than settling down with a cozy quilt on your bed during these long snowstorms we have here in Wisconsin. Every bed in our house has a quilt on it. These fabrics from Riley Blake are so festive and fun, I couldn’t wait to use them!

The pink, red, white and black color combination is a lot like Neapolitan ice cream, don’t you think? This Neapolitan quilt design is available on the Cricut website. I adore all the fun Valentine themed prints from Riley Blake Designs. Riley Blake makes it so easy to put a quilt together because the fabric comes in a pre-made set, taking out all the guess work of quilt design. This particular quilt is great for intermediate to advanced sewers since matching all these little pieces takes a bit of skill.

This quilt design is different than most because it is mostly prints. The only solids are in the sashing and the back of the quilt. The overall look is busy, fun and so colorful!

Both using a pre-designed quilt from Cricut with coordinating prints as well as cutting the pieces on my Cricut Maker made this quilting project so much fun! Cricut also has a great set of quilting and sewing tools which include everything you need to get the job done, I’m so thankful I had these on hand.

Supplies Needed

Cricut Maker with Rotary cutting blade and fabric cutting mat
2/3 yard cuts of 3 light colored Cricut cotton quilt prints
2/3 yard cuts of 3 dark colored Cricut cotton quilt prints
1/3 yard cut of ivory Cricut cotton for sashing
2 2/3 yard cut of cotton Cricut quilt fabric for backing (mine was black)
1/2 yard of pink Cricut cotton for quilt binding
coordinating quilt thread
embroidery thread in pink, red, black, white
polyester quilt batting

Cricut Neapolitan Quilt Cutting Directions

1. Download the Neapolitian Quilt pattern from the Cricut website here. Print the PDF sewing directions to keep by your sewing machine. Read the directions throughly before you continue.

2. Press the fabric pieces. Plan out which pieces will be octagons and which will be squares and sashing.

3. Using a Cricut fabric cutting mat and Cricut rotary cutting blade, cut each piece as directed by your Cricut Maker. Count all pieces to be sure you have all of them, you will need 15 octagons and 60 squares for the 4-square blocks. (I find it very helpful to keep similar size pieces in piles.)

Sewing with Cricut Directions

1. Lay the square pieces out with the sashing in between them as pictured above. Be sure that you are using the sashing pieces that are 5.75″ long. There are also longer 12″ and 7″ sashing pieces but we will use those later. Do not get them mixed up! Stitch the blocks together with the shorter sashing in the middle using a 1/4″ seam allowance and a stitch length of 2.5mm.

2. Press the seam allowances toward the blocks. Sew the 12″ sashing to the bottom of each 1/2 block. Press. Assemble the block with the other pieces in the same method.

3. Add the sashing to the octagon pieces. Use the shorter pieces and stitch them to the top, sides and bottom first. Press seam allowances to the darkest color as shown in the photo below.

4. Sew the sashing on to the sides of the octagon using the 7″ sashing strips. Overlay the strips on the right side as you sew with a 1/4″ seam allowance.

5. Press from right side.

6. Lay out corner pieces. Be sure the prints are going the right direction, then stitch in place. Press again, then trim all blocks to 11″ square.

I have made several videos with tips on sewing these blocks step by step. You can see them here on my YouTube Channel.)

Cricut Sewing and Finishing Details

1. Lay out the blocks in order according to the sewing directions. Vary the octagon and 4 square blocks and light vs. dark colors in each row. Sew the blocks together row by row, then in vertical rows until the entire quilt top is put together.

2. Make a “sandwich” of the quilt backing, polyester quilt batting, and quilt top. Pin in place.

3. Chanel quilt down each row and across each seam with black quilt thread as shown.

4. Finally, cut the pink sashing pieces 2 1/2″ wide the width of the fabric with a rotary cutter and ruler. Sew two pieces together at the narrow end for each side of the quilt. Press seams. Stitch to the right side of quilt around the entire boarder through all thicknesses leaving 2″ extra fabric at each corner for mitering. Miter corners, then turn to the back of the quilt and fold under 1/2″ seam allowance. Hand-sew in place with a slip stitch using heavy quilt thread.

Embroidery Details

After I quilted the quilt, I decided to add some fun embroidery to the center of each octagon. I used pink, red, black and white embroidery thread to make cute Valentine phrases on each hexagon block. Words like hugs, love ya, cutie, amore, be mine, I’m yours and sweetheart decorate the center of the blocks and make the quilt even more fun! The embroidery is completely optional. I machine-embroidered them through all layers with a small 100 x 100mm size embroidery hoop. Each block is a different font and color that coordinates with the fun colored prints in the quilt. You could also hand embroider these phrases if you don’t have a machine that does embroidery.

This project was a fun change from my regular garment sewing. Remember to check out my step-by-step video tutorial for the entire project over on my YouTube Channel.

I hope you will try it out! If you do decided to give this project (or any Cricut project) a try, follow this link for a discount on your Cricut purchases.

Thank you to Cricut for sponsoring this post!