All You Need to Know: Simple Irish Chain

At the beginning of the month it felt like I was struggling to complete any projects. But then everything came together and I put the finishing touches on two different quilts in a week…this might be a record for me! Although it feels a little bit like cheating because this Irish Chain was so simple and fast to put together. But simple patterns and low volume prints make for my favorite type of baby quilt- calming and cozy.

This is the second quilt I made for our little one coming this Spring, but I’m planning to use this one as a stroller, car seat, floor, everywhere kind of blanket. And for a while, it will probably get more use than the crib quilt I finished last week.

For those asking about fabrics and patterns, I am sharing all the details below (you can also scroll to the bottom for everything in outline form)

I have been listening to old A Quilting Life Podcast episodes while I sew, and in several episodes they mention Irish Chain quilts. I think this is where the idea for this project set in. I searched through Instagram and found this free pattern from Penelope Handmade. The actual pattern has the requirements for making a 66 x 66”quilt, but it was pretty easy to remove blocks and rows and resize to a 42×42″ baby quilt.

At this same time, I found the Sevenberry Petite Garden fabric collection and fell head over heels in love, and so I reverse engineered my fabric selection (I started with the backing and found solids to match for the front) to come up with the Kona solids that I chose for the top.

For the quilting, I went with simple cross-hatched lines spaced 2 inches apart. For this I also lengthened my stitch to 4.0.

And quickly becoming my favorite detail to any project is the binding. A few weeks ago, I wrote a blog post highlighting my favorite (and fastest) ways to make binding strips. But it turns out there is an even faster (and easier!) way… for this quilt I purchased pre-made binding from Bessie Pearl Textiles. I chose her delicate pink stripes and I am absolutely in love with how it ties the front and the back of this quilt together.

All this to say, this was my first Irish Chain but I definitely won’t make it my last!