One of my most popular and favorite patterns is the Cactus!  It's on the simpler side of my collage quilts (but still looks awesome), it makes me feel like I am someplace warm, and it's full of my favorite color: green!

The Cactus collage quilt, along with my other collage quilts, comes with a pre-printed foundation panel. The pre-printed foundation panel is a gray tone guide that takes the guesswork out of where to put all those lovely dark emerald greens and those icy cool blues.  YEP, you heard that right~ the foundation panel guides fabric selection AND fabric placement-- It's like a paint by numbers with fabric :)

Select 4+ fabrics for each gray tone, to ensure a dimensional quilt!  My recommendation is to use a mix of fabrics that read like solids (such as batiks) with beautiful prints-- this creates depth and interest in the finished quilt.  The best way to get started is to separate your fabrics according to value (lightest to darkest). 

In this image, you can see I have 5 groupings or sets, each getting progressively darker.  These correspond to values 1-5 in the cactus plant.  Once you've selected your fabric, now it's just a matter of cutting and applying the pieces directly to the panel in the corresponding gray section of the design.

I hope this brief tutorial will help you create a beautiful Cactus Collage Quilt!  ~Emily

The Cactus pattern is available here:

CACTUS

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