This particular quilt has gotten so much attention over the past year that I decided it was time to write a tutorial to go along with the pattern. A little back story as to why a tutorial is needed rather than just following the pattern… I blame my husband. After I finished AND PUBLISHED the pattern, my husband told me he wanted one made entirely out of Essex Linen but he had some design “ideas” to make it unique.

At the time I saw no issue with this and let him take the reins with a coloring page. The problem was, I had no idea how popular this particular version would be. I have received so many questions on how to hack the pattern to make it look like this, so I came up with a cheat sheet to share with those who reached out. But I’m having a hard time keeping up with the DMs, Sooo I decided to write a blog post that will walk you through making this version. I hope you enjoy!

*Note: This blog post was written to accompany the pattern and won’t make much sense without it*

Lets start with the fabric pull! This quilt was made entirely with Robert Kaufman Essex Linen. It is important to note that there are different types of Essex Linen that have the same color name. So be careful when you are ordering that you are selecting the correct fabric.

My favorite place to buy Essex Linen is through Fat Quarter Shop. They carry all the colors and they have very quick shipping!

*Order Through Fat Quarter Shop Here*

Before you cut into any fabric, let’s talk about caring for Essex Linen. My quilt is made entirely with Essex (backing and binding included). Since I didn’t use any other fabric throughout the quilt, I chose not to prewash because I love a crinkly quilt. However, if you plan on using quilters cotton in addition to the Essex, I would be sure to prewash all your fabric because they will shrink at different rates. We don’t want any popped seams! If you do prewash your Essex, it is best to zigzag along the raw edges to reduce the fraying caused by the washer.

Once your quilt is made, it can be washed and dried just as you would any other quilt. My family lives under this quilt throughout most of the year, so it has been washed MANY times and has held up perfectly. My favorite thing about Essex is that it gets softer with every wash.

Now lets make a quilt!

Fabric Requirements

Cutting Instructions

These are the “Hacked” cutting instructions for this version. The only tricky one is the B3 piece. Instead of making (8) squares of Natural, you will be splitting it up making (4) squares with Natural and (4) squares with Roasted Pecan. Be sure to label these to keep them straight when constructing the block. Label the Natural squares as B3(a) and the Roasted Pecan squares as B3(b). Also note that C1 and C2 squares are cut from Natural and the remaining C pieces are cut from Leather. Label them according to the chart below so that you can follow the original pattern to construct the quilt.

Updated Diagrams

The following diagrams are from Page 11 of the pattern. You can now see why we needed to split up B3 into the two different fabric colors (Figure 9). This will create the points of the star.