Welcome to Week 1 of the Woodland Wander Quilt Along! This week is all about getting started on planning the quilt by choosing your fabric.

(It’s never too late to join in the fun. Read this post for more information about the quilt along!)

Choose Your Quilt Version

Before we go fabric shopping, though, the first thing to choose is which version of the quilt you want to make. With this quilt pattern, you can make:

A no-waste quilt top with forty-two 10″ squares (also known as layer cake), or
A solid background quilt with 12 fat quarters and 2.5 yards of background fabric.

You can also add optional borders to any version of the quilt, to make it just a little bit bigger. This requires an additional 1/3 yard for the skinny border and 1 yard for the wide border.

Cathy’s Christmas Woodland Wander below is a Layer Cake version, with the optional borders.

Our latest Woodland Wander is the Solid Background Version without borders.

Layer Cake Version

If you’d like to make a layer cake version, here are a few tips for choosing your 10″ squares. First off, different brands call their 10″ square packs different things. Moda is the leader in precuts, so their term “layer cake” is the most commonly used among quilters. Some other terms are Ten by Tens, 10″ Stackers, or just 10″ squares. You can also cut squares from your fabric stash to make your own layer cake, but make sure the fabrics you use fill the requirements listed below.

Things to look for in a layer cake:

42 squares. This is the standard number of pieces in a layer cake, but sometimes different brands only have 40. This is totally fine, if you are able to supplement the pack with a couple of squares from your stash. Just be aware of this when you’re shopping!
Good contrast within the fabric range. We love using layer cakes for this very reason. Usually, there is a great range of colors and light and dark color value to work with within an entire fabric collection. This is especially important for this quilt, since the squares are used for both the trees and the background. Make sure that you can pair the squares in contrasting colors and values to make the trees stand out.

Below is an example of a good fabric choice for this pattern. Notice the amount of very light and very dark prints.

This is Rosa by Crystal Manning for Moda. It would make such a cute Woodland Wander!

Once you have your 42 squares, and border fabric if you desire, you are ready to start working on the quilt top! See the instructions at the bottom of this post on how to enter the weekly giveaway.

Additional fabric notes: Without the borders, you’ll need 3.5 yards of backing fabric and 1/2 yard binding fabric. With the borders, it will be 4 yards of backing fabric and 5/8 yard binding. You can choose these now if you’d like, but most of the time we wait until the quilt top is finished to choose our backing and binding. It seems to give us a better sense of how it will look once the quilt top is pieced. It’s really a matter of personal preference, so you can do this step now or later.

Solid Background Version

If you’d like to make the the solid background version, you’ll need to find 12 coordinating fat quarters (18″ x 21″) and 2.5 yards of background fabric. This is the version we will be making again for the quilt along. On our first Woodland Wander with a solid background, we used a white background, which works really well for just about anything, except very light tree fabrics. We’re going a little more adventurous this time around, with a green grunge background.

We found all of our fat quarters and background fabric at our local quilt shop, My Girlfriend’s Quilt Shoppe.

Here are our tips for choosing fat quarters and background fabric:

Choose the fat quarters first. Since they won’t be right next to each other in the quilt, they don’t need to vary too much on color or value, but it will add some interest to the quilt if you have a good variety. Unless you’re going for an absolute scrappy or rainbow look, try to limit the main colors of the fat quarters to 3 or 4. This will make the color scheme of your quilt look intentional.
Find a background color that compliments the fat quarters. Remember that the background fabric is just that, the background. It shouldn’t stand out more than the fat quarters, but it should stand apart from the trees. Notice how the green grunge background is either lighter than the fat quarters or a different color. This will help the trees stand out once they’re pieced. Just look for a background that compliments the colors of the fat quarters, but doesn’t compete for your eye’s attention.

Additional fabric notes: Without the borders, you’ll need 3.5 yards of backing fabric and 1/2 yard binding fabric. With the borders, it will be 4 yards of backing fabric and 5/8 yard binding. You can choose these now if you’d like, but most of the time we wait until the quilt top is finished to choose our backing and binding. It seems to give us a better sense of how it will look once the quilt top is pieced. It’s really a matter of personal preference, so you can do this step now or later.

Weekly Giveaway

Our weekly giveaways are hosted on our Instagram page, which means that you do need a public Instagram account to participate. Head over there to see the rules for entry.

Up for grabs this week is a $50 gift certificate from Cottoneer + a Cloth Parcel PDF pattern of your choice!

Cottoneer has a ton of curated fat quarter bundles, which are perfect for this quilt! The deadline to enter this giveaway is Sunday, June 9th at midnight MST.

We can’t wait to see what fabric you’ll pick this week for your Woodland Wander Quilt!