While I live in the middle of a city surrounded by trees and buildings, Brenda lives in the country with wide open views from the top of a hill. In June, there’s a weekend when hundreds of hot air balloons drift across the sky. I love the riot of colors and their peaceful progress, so we made the Hot Air quilt.

Hot Air is a fun twist on the classic Trip Around the World pattern. What better way to travel than when you’re full of Hot Air?! I kid of course, but I really don’t stop talking.

This is the queen/full size that our friend Taryne whipped up and quilted out of Marcia Derse fabric. Fun story about Marcia Derse, we saw her booth of hand made fabrics when she showed at Houston Quilt Festival in 2006. We have Marcia Derse originals! Thankfully, her hand-dyed hand-painted handmade beauties are now being reproduced by Windham Fabrics so they’re a much more affordable option.

The Hot Air Pattern includes instructions and diagrams for three sizes of quilt: Baby is 45″ x 45″, Throw is 63″ x 63″, and Full/Queen is 87″ x 87″. Hot Air is beginner-friendly. The hardest part is picking out and arranging your fabrics. For your constant fabric, the black print in our sample, make sure that it pops or at least shows up against all your fabrics. You don’t want to go to all that work and not have anyone see it!

You can download the pattern from Etsy here.

You can download the pattern from Craftsy here.