My 10 Favourite Low Volume EPP Quilts

Cherish quilt is perfect for showing off those larger feature prints in the center hexagons! Whether you choose the 8" version (featuring a 4" center hexagon) or the 6" version (featuring a 3" center hexagon), you'll get to finally use those stunning big florals or sweet animals that get passed over often in the small piecing of EPP.

I included a bunch of not-so-low-volume pastels in this quilt also to create some subtle contrast between the border rounds. 

This Cherish Quilt was a great opportunity to use a lot of different prints that were too high contrast to use as background fabrics. I just love how it came together!

Kindling quilt, the base for all of the quilts in the Hexie Handbook, actually uses the very same 3" hexagons featured in the 6" version of Cherish above. So, if you still have leftover low volume prints after making Cherish, you can reuse the papers and make a start on Kindling!

Since this quilt is a simple hexagon grid, once you baste the hexagons, you're ready to start stitching right away. It's perfect for sitting in the living room in the evening while watching a show or hanging out with friends. 

Hexie Harvest is a wonderful scrap buster sampler quilt! It features each of the block designs found in the Hexie Handbook, which vary in levels of complexity. This means that you can use all sizes of low volume scraps that you find hard to use in other quilts. I loved using up hard-to-use high contrast prints, and mixed it up with more subtle, background fabrics so that they could shine. 

Trip Around the World quilts have been in every palette, but this one in mostly low volumes and pastels just feels like a gentle stroll, doesn't it? Made up in the "Pilgrimage" design from The Postcards Quilt Collection, each round adds subtle depth like dancing shadows along a sandy path. You can read more about this quilt here. 

Aren't the pops of vibrant color strategically placed in this Warm Hearted quilt just perfect? And, the low volume prints that provide the backdrop make this quilt soft and cozy, while also keeping it interesting. I can imagine an "I Spy" quilt just like this with featured prints scattered throughout.

For this quilt, I used the colouring page in the pattern, and marked out evenly spaced hearts that would be high volume hearts, and let my low volume scraps fill in the gaps.

While all the of above quilts are made from almost completely low volume fabrics, the following have a large low volume component, with a contrasting colour to complete the design. Often in this case, I choose my subtlest low volume prints for highest contrast, but with this Bonnie quilt, I wanted the flower petals to be the focus. Sometimes if you make jewel flowers in a single fabric or with minimal contrast between petals, the resulting flowers can feel a bit more like flower-shaped blobs rather than allowing the petals to come in and out of focus like in nature. By choosing a wide variety of "low volume" scraps, the flower shapes sparkle and dance just like in the garden. 

While the focus of this Solace quilt is really the bright stripes, I loved the process of cutting and stitching my low volume scraps to make the beautiful, white stars. Made in the early days of the pandemic, I found the stitching of these soft, pretty fabrics easy and calming.  

These two baby sized Willoughby quilts, made from a single Willoughby paper piece kit, began as a tub of diamonds basted from low volume scraps. As the pile of stars grew, I realised that the lot could be split in half with two different background colors to make two baby sized quilts instead of one single throw sized quilt. I loved experimenting with the background fabric - you can dial up or down the contrast to make them really POP or simply sparkle. 

Quilts inspired by Penrose Tile designs are often applauded for their meticulous use of fussy cutting. But, this gentle two color version, called Pirouette, requires little to no decision making while still offering a stunning result. By featuring scrappy low volume fabrics and only using color in the tiny triangles and diamonds, the result looks so much like quilted lace. You can read more about this stunning quilt here.