Bella Skill Builder Quilt Along: March–Aqua, Red and Stone Orange Peels!

As one of their advertising partners, I’m participating in The Fat Quarter Shop’s Moda Bella Skill Builder Quilt Along, and March’s block was a LOT of fun (and really easy!).


The pattern is free and is available on the first of each month on the Jolly Jabber, and there’s a kit for the quilt along available here.



A little background -

I decided to go with a color palette that I loved and that was a little wintery – something that would look good in our master bedroom. Here I’ll be 100% honest – I don’t have a color scheme in my main bed – we moved in 2 years ago and the walls were all cream when we moved in, and they haven’t changed. I went with grey curtains (because I needed curtains right away and didn’t know how I was going to decorate the room in the future) and I’ve been working on any and every other room in the house since.

I recently toured a friend’s house (and it’s absolutely GORGEOUS by the way) and the running color theme through it is navy – which has made me love my color choices even more – and here’s my color palette inspiration, as a refresher or in case you missed it last month:


…and here’s what that looks like in Bella (from Moda) solids:


…I decided to add a pop of orange to the mix, just a little, to give a tiny bit of visual interest, so I added the Melon in. I may still add a darker red at some point, but I do love where this is going!

And, without further adieu, my blocks for the month of March!

(Again, my blocks aren’t the most perfect-est. Meh. I’m not the most perfect-est quilter. It’s okay. What’s that saying? Done is better than perfect? [but secretly again my type A personality is screaming at me that my peel points aren’t all matchy-matchy everywhere on these blocks, something no one is even going to notice, but still. I’m really trying to let loose a little hahahah])

And if you decide that you’d like to participate in the quilt along (PLEASE DO!!! and you can leave pictures in the comments below if you do!), here are a few little tips and tricks I found really helped me in my process – but make sure to check out the Fat Quarter Shop’s You Tube Page (here) for their video tutorial on these blocks -

- I used a Fons & Porter glue stick pen to hold my peels in place while I stitched – worked really well, and I already had it on hand.
- to cut my peels I used EZ Quilting Mylar Template plastic to create a template which I then used to cut my peels out with a 18mm rotary cutter, both of which I already had on hand. Heavy cardboard works well as a template, too.

- to applique, I used a zigzag set at a 3.0 stitch width and 1.0 stitch length, and a 50wt Aurifil in the bobbin and upper thread spool.

This block was a lot of fun, and I can’t wait to see everyone else’s blocks and color palettes, and of course for April’s block!

Thanks to the Fat Quarter Shop for such a fun quilt along. Make sure to visit the Jolly Jabber today to see all of the other participant’s blocks and to see what they’ve been up to. And remember you can pin all of the pretty blocks on Pinterest from the hop today for future reference, I love seeing how all of the different bloggers interpret the blocks!

Are YOU participating in the quilt along?

Stay tuned for more fun!