Karen O'Connor of Lady K Quilts has been quilting for 20+ years, making and designing modern traditional quilts. She's also been following and sewing along with the Moda Blockheads and instantly recognized the wealth of inspiration that the Blockheads series provides even to quilters who aren't sewing along every week. Karen reached out to the Moda team last fall to create a quilt that serendipitously connected Crystal Manning's Julia fabric collection with a Julia Child exhibit at the Smithsonian, and she graciously offered to share the pattern with everyone here on the Moda blog. Read on for Karen's inpiration and the pattern for this stunning quilt!

When I first saw the upcoming collection by Crystal Manning titled “Julia,” I felt an instant connection. Like Crystal, I too watched and loved the HBO series about Julia Child that has been airing the last year or so. I have loved and admired Julia Child my entire life and have been inspired by her as I learned to cook and bake in my adult years.

It was a pleasure to get to design a quilt to help Moda promote the Julia collection, which is shipping February 2024. My quilt is a classic design that not only showcases some of the beautiful fabrics in the Julia collection, but also helps bring fresh attention to those amazing Blockheads patterns that Moda has offered over the last few years. Being a member of Moda’s Blockheads Facebook group, I see everyone’s excitement for these blocks, and while they wait for upcoming seasons to launch, or even next Wednesday’s next block to be published, I want to remind these passionate quilters that inspiration and the resources for making so many different kinds of quilts are always there on the Moda website.

As I imagined what a quilt design could look like using the Julia collection by Crystal Manning, I looked to past Moda Blockheads seasons and selected a total of four blocks from both Blockheads 2 & 3 to create a sampler-style quilt. The wallpaper-inspired fabric in all three colorways was so much fun to incorporate into the sashing and borders of the design. The print featuring cherries and strawberries on black truly made for the perfect fussy cut squares throughout the quilt.

I was lucky enough to take this quilt up to the Smithsonian American History Museum in Washington, D.C. with the help of my sweet husband, a short 30 miles from where I live, and photograph it in front of Julia Child’s kitchen, which she donated to the Smithsonian in 2001. This photograph was actually his idea and it was so cool to make it come to fruition. The turquoise, cherry red, and black and white colors in the collection were the perfect complement in the quilt to Julia’s actual kitchen that was moved from her home in Connecticut to Washington, D.C. I like to think that the quilt would have been the perfect addition to one of the beds in her home with her beloved husband, Paul Child.

Download the Julia's Table pattern: Julia's Table by Lady K Quilts

Julia's Table uses blocks from Blockheads 2 and 3. Here are the direct links to those blocks:

• Blockheads 2, Block 4 
• Blockheads 3, Block 1
• Blockheads 3, Block 28
• Blockheads 3, Block 53

Julia by Crystal Manning is in stores now! Be sure to visit your favorite quilt shop for the fabrics you'll need to make Julia's Table.

Thank you, Karen, for sharing this pattern with us! You can follow along with Karen on her Instagram, @ladykquilts, for more inspiration!