Bernie's Mittens Quilt

Remember Bernie Sanders walking into Joe Biden's inauguration?

I've discovered what was in his mysterious manila envelope: the pattern for a quilt that matches his now-distinctive mittens!

What a seat! Right next to it! Though with all that cold and snow, maybe he'd feel a little cozier snuggled up underneath it. That could put a smile on his grumpy face! In all seriousness, I fell in love with the Bernie picture from the very first tweet I saw. Who hasn't felt this way about a meeting?

And now I laugh everytime I see him inserted anywhere else. The Bob Ross, Jurassic Park, and Blue's Clues memes really cracked me up, but they are all hilarious.

The Bernie's Mittens quilt pattern plays on this iconic photo, but in a fun, easy sort of way (yes, I can design a quilt without curves!). Bernie's mittens are knit, so my pattern is assembled in vertical stripes, much like a swatch of knitted fabric. I was so excited with this design, that as soon as I had it mocked up I immediately had to start sewing, which meant diving into my stash to see what I could find to fit the theme. I don't have a lot of browns, which means that my options for creating the top were pretty limited.

Luckily for me, I found four fabrics that coordinated and had enough yardage! Unfortunately for you, most of them are older and out of print. Only the dark brown, Kona Espresso, is still available. The light brown wasn't labeled, but is very similar in color to Kona Leather. I don't normally sew with florals, so I'm not sure why I had four yards of the medium brown with tiny blue flowers, but I adore it in this quilt. The blue reminds me of the blue mask that Bernie was wearing. The "white" fabric is actually an off-white tone-on-tone print. Combining solids and prints in this way isn't my first instinct, but since the prints are all subtle it works very well.

The back is a blue print, again as a nod to Bernie's blue mask. The quilt was long-arm quilted by my friend Lauren of Tekstil Crave, who is a whiz at finding the perfect pantograph for whatever quilt I throw at her. This time around, she found this great pattern called "Chunky Knit", which was actually only released last week. It mimics knitting stitches, which is absolutely perfect for a quilt based on knit mittens! The binding is made from the same fabric as the dark brown used in the quilt top. My mittens are also thrifted from an old sweater and lined with fleece - made by a relative and gifted to me by my mother-in-law a few years ago.

Still not convinced? This is a super-easy, beginner-friendly quilt pattern. It's assembled in vertical strips and super-forgiving because there are only a few seams that need to match up. The finished quilt top is a comfortable lap quilt measuring 51" x 63". It would look great in any color combination and there are so many ways you could customize it. Wouldn't it be fun to fussy cut a print fabric in the center of the plus signs across the top of the quilt? Or change it up and use five colors instead of four? Whatever you do, it would still look like a pair of knit mittens!

None of the colors need very much yardage - if I could find enough in my stash, I'm sure you could find enough in yours! The most you need of any one color is 1.25 yards for the center brown section. If yardage isn't what you have stashed, Bernie's Mittens also includes a bonus scrappy layout showing how to make your quilt entirely out of scrappy squares. Combining different squares from the same color family will give you the same effect!

Bernie's Mittens (and everything else in my shop!) is currently on sale for 20% off and you can save another 10% with the promo code MITTENS through Thursday February 11th.

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Other Bernie's Mittens Quilts I've made!