Can it possibly be?  A third version of the Ribbon Box quilt??

Yes, friends. This is what I have been up to lately. Last month, after completing Beribboned, my second version of the free Ribbon Box pattern from Cloud 9 Fabrics, I was working on a blog post describing how I eliminated several seamlines by sewing the quilt top together in three sections rather than nine rows and how I changed the original pattern’s dimensions (45″ x 59″) to come up with a larger quilt top (51″ x 65″). But I ran into difficulty with my post-in-progress because I hadn’t taken enough notes during the construction of Beribboned to complete the post to my satisfaction.

What to do? Why, make another version, of course. And I had just the fabrics in mind. In 2021 Riley Blake Fabrics came out with a lovely line called “Gingham Foundry” designed by My Mind’s Eye. Montavilla Sewing Center in Lake Oswego, where I teach, carried several fabrics from the line and I quickly scooped them up.

The Gingham Foundry line was anchored by the large-scale floral on a dark blue background (first vertical ribbon in the photo above) but the design that made my heart sing — quite literally! — was this text print featuring the lyrics to “What a Wonderful World:”

The song, with words and music by George David Weiss and Bob Thiele, was made famous by the one and only Louis “Satchmo” Armstrong, who recorded it in 1967. Others have recorded it but Satchmo’s version is by far the most well known.

I loved the idea of incorporating the text print in a Ribbon Box quilt. This was my initial fabric pull:

I added another print from the Gingham Foundry collection that I found online last year and pulled two other fabrics from my stash, a dusty blue polka dot and a gold tone-on-tone blender. Here are my fabric choices already cut into strips or rolled up to measure roughly 5″ wide, laid out in my planned setting:

After looking at that photo, I could see that the gold blender (fourth vertical strip) was much too strong so I rummaged around in my drawer of large scraps and found a softer shade of gold that seemed just right. Lo and behold, there was just enough of it to make a ribbon.

Here are the eight ribbon prints cut into 5½”-wide strips and laid out on my ironing board. The replacement gold fabric is on the upper right. I labeled the stacks 1V, 2V, 3V, 4V for vertical and 1H, 2H, 3H, 4H for horizontal (though somehow I got horizontal rows 2 and 3 reversed in this photo):

I also cut my background fabrics and labeled them by size:

This really helped in the assembly of the sections. Now take a look at the three sections, ready to be sewn together:

Notice anything unusual?

In vertical rows 1, 3, and 4, I have inserted what I call “placeholders,” scraps of fabric sewn with the back side showing. Once the three sections are sewn together, I’m going to replace those seamed pieces with single strips of the appropriate ribbon fabric to keep the flow of the fabric designs uninterrupted. In my next post I’ll show you how I did that. Do come back to see!