Shades of Scotland Quilt

This year I finally made my dream trip to Scotland. It's been at the top of my bucket list for most of my life - the scenery, the castles, the history. So much to see! I decided this year it was time to stop dreaming and start doing. I spent months planning and plotting, getting suggestions from the amazing IG community, and working out an itinerary. Three and a half weeks packed full of awesome destinations and once in a life time experiences. And it did not disappoint!

When I was planning the trip, I kept thinking of how awesome it would be to be able to take photos of quilts against those amazing landscapes - and also how impractical that would be with limited luggage space, and epic travel time (it took us 30+ hours to get there from Australia!). So I came up with the next best thing. Quilt blocks!

I designed a quilt made up of smaller blocks that I could make and take with me to Scotland. At various destinations on the trip, my long suffering children helped me out holding quilt blocks so I could snap some photos. I shared these each day on Instagram by way of documenting my trip.

Here's a little collage of all the blocks. I made two versions of each of the blocks so I had 32 of them to share around Scotland. You can see these pictures individually on my Instagram account instagram.com/quietplay

As you can see, it was a bit of a whirlwind trip! We packed in 2-3 destinations every day, saw a bunch of castles, walked and walked for kilometres and took well over a thousand photos. We met the most amazing people, saw the most beautiful landscapes, and marvelled over the history everywhere we went. I couldn't have asked for a better trip.

I loved having the opportunity to document my trip along with my passion - quilting. Even if we did look a bit weird holding up quilt blocks everywhere we went. But who could resist a photo opportunity with one of those darling Highland cows?

Or for that matter - with the national animal of Scotland - the unicorn? Why yes, we did meet a unicorn on our dream trip. It may or may not have been one of the highlights of the visit!

When we came back home, I started putting the blocks together into my grand plan - a souvenir quilt! Each of the blocks reminds me of the various places we visited around Scotland - and naturally my version is in rainbow because that's what makes my quilty heart happy.

For those who'd love to make their own version of this quilt, good news! The pattern is now available! And better news - there's options! The pattern comes in two different sizes. The version shown here is the larger size - each of the smaller blocks measures 6.5" unfinished, and set into a 48" circular setting. But I have also designed a smaller version with blocks that are 4.5" unfinished and set into a 32" setting.

The beauty of this design is that if you don't particularly love one (or more!) or the quilt blocks included, you can simply switch it out for any other block that measures 4.5"/6.5" (depending on the quilt size you're making). So you can adapt this quilt and make it your own.

You can find this pattern in my shop and then you just have to choose whether to make the smaller size or the larger size!

I still have plans to add some borders to my quilt centre and make it large enough to fit my bed. What better souvenir than a quilt that I can look at every time and think of all the beautiful places in Scotland I visited (and dream about the next trip!).