Tumbleweeds in River Valley Fabric

I just loved making this fun Tumbleweeds pattern by Sarah Furrer, for Studio 180 Design. What made it even yummier was Island Batik‘s River Valley fabrics designed by Kathy Engle for Deb Tucker. The beautiful greens and blues made me think of days spent canoeing on the Wacissa river here in Tallahassee, Florida. Sarah called the pattern Tumbleweeds because it has that feel of the blocks tumbling across the desert, but with the river fabric I refer to them “Rolling on a River” or maybe just River Rollin’. What do you think?

First I started with these beautiful fabrics sent to me by Studio 180 Design, to which I say, thank you.

The Corner Pop II tool is used to cut the replacement corners. This tool, designed by Running with Scissors, is a take off from the original Corner Pop but, instead of a 1:1 dimension, it is 2:1. There is also a Corner Pop III which is 3:1 – more design possibilities!

I needed to keep them organized so I used the Paper Plate method, labeling my plates as I go.

Starting with a center square which is Corner Popped, this quilt is built like a log cabin popping off corners and replacing them with the dark colored triangles… and could this fabric be any more perfect? I just love the touch of green in the background fabric.

One of the things I love about the Studio 180 Design tools is that your blocks are made oversized and then trimmed to perfection.

After your center block is done, you continue the process adding strips, trimming them to size, popping off the corner, and then replacing the corner with a dark triangle. I like to use the Tucker Trimmer for the squaring up process. You can chain piece too, which make the process much faster.

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Once I got my blocks together it was fun to start building on my design wall.

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So thank you, Studio 180 Design for another terrific pattern and great tool to make it with. Also many thanks to Island Batik for continuing to make such beautiful fabric!