Riley Blake Tidings Of Great Joy Panel Quilt - Downloadable PDF

Riley Blake Tidings of Great Joy Panel Quilt – Free Downloadable PDF Pattern Summary

The Tidings of Great Joy Panel Quilt is a festive, holiday-themed quilting project designed by J. Wecker Frisch for Riley Blake Designs. This intermediate-level quilt finishes at a generous 48½" x 69", making it an impressive seasonal showpiece for a bed, sofa, or wall display. The pattern is available as a free downloadable PDF and is built around the striking All About Christmas Panel (P10790 Panel), which serves as the dramatic focal point of the entire design.

What Is Being Made

This project produces a structured, multi-border panel quilt centered on a large fussy-cut Christmas panel. The design frames the central panel with a series of pieced and solid borders, incorporating coordinating cotton fabrics in classic holiday colors — red, green, and white — along with black accents. A decorative "Christmas" Banner element is also included as part of the design, adding a charming handcrafted detail. The finished quilt combines precision piecing with optional embellishment techniques for a rich, layered holiday aesthetic.

Design Structure and Layout

The quilt is organized around a central fussy-cut panel and multiple surrounding borders, each with its own piecing requirements:

• Central Panel (A): A fussy-cut rectangle measuring 23" x 43½", centered carefully over the All About Christmas Panel design to preserve the printed motifs.
• Border 1: Constructed using precut 5" squares from the kit. Eleven squares are selected for the bottom and sides, and sixteen squares are used for the side sections. Rectangles cut from these squares — labeled C (5" x 4¾") — are incorporated into the border construction.
• Green Square Units: The 24 Green 5" squares are cut into multiple rectangle sizes: D (5" x 2½") yielding 38 pieces, E (4½" x 2½") yielding 2 pieces, and F (3½" x 2½") yielding 4 pieces — providing the building blocks for pieced border sections.
• Red Strip Units (G): The 8 Red 2½" x WOF strips are cut into 16 rectangles measuring 2½" x 12½", which are used to construct structured border segments.
• Border 4 and "Christmas" Banner (H): Cut from the Riley White Confetti Cottons as 7 strips measuring 5" x WOF, these pieces form the outermost border and the decorative banner element.
• White Typography Accent (I): A fussy-cut 5" x 32" rectangle centered over the word "MERRY" from the C10792 White typography fabric, adding a bold typographic detail to the quilt.
• White Square Accents: Eight 5" x 5" squares are fussy-cut from the White Typography fabric to incorporate coordinating printed motifs throughout the design.

Techniques Used

The Tidings of Great Joy Panel Quilt employs a range of classic and intermediate quilting techniques:

• Fussy cutting — a key technique throughout this pattern, requiring careful centering over printed panel motifs and typography to preserve the integrity of the design. This is used for the central panel, the "MERRY" strip, and the decorative 5" squares.
• Precision strip cutting — WOF (width of fabric) strips are cut and then sub-cut into specific rectangles, a standard quilting method for efficient and accurate piecing.
• Pieced border construction — multiple borders are assembled from a combination of rectangles and squares, requiring careful attention to seam alignment and pressing.
• ¼" seam allowance — all measurements and templates in the pattern include a standard ¼" seam allowance, consistent with quilting best practices.
• Optional embellishment — the pattern includes optional decorative finishing using Size 8 Black Pearl