Organizing Tips for Perfect Pineapples

Tula Pink’s “Pining For You Quilt Kit” has the organized chaos of colors that I love in a quilt – and achieves it with 50 (fifty!!) different fabrics from the Daydreamer and Cotton Solids collections. Although this quilt is easy to sew and good for beginners, keeping the fabrics in order might prove to be a challenge. I’m sharing my organizing tips in this post to help you keep the rainbow pineapples as Tula intended!

I selected this quilt because my daughters are fans of the show “Psych” that has (or mentions) a pineapple in almost every episode. If you don’t believe me, settle in – there are 120 episodes! I previously made Elizabeth Hartman’s Pineapple Farm quilt for my oldest daughter, and chose Pining For You for my youngest daughter to keep the pineapple gifts equal.

Recommended Supplies:

• New rotary cutting blade
• Mini post-it notes
• Pen
• Short pins
• Clover clips

And here’s a couple of good ideas to help minimize the flipping of pattern pages:

• Make a color copy of page 1 and write the fabric codes (A, B, etc. -- to AX) on the copy
• Draw an outline around the 4 pineapples in each of the 10 blocks that have the same background

Odd Things I Noticed With This Kit

1. The rainbow fabric looks green on the package cover and pattern; it is decidedly yellow in reality.

2. Also, there may or may not have been free tequila at the cutting factory on the day my kit was prepared, some of the strips are wonky! Be sure to square up the edges on the solids used in the pineapple tops before cutting the 2” strips. This kit is extremely generous with the fabric provided, so don’t worry about trimming edges – you’ll have a lot of extra fabric. (Hmmm, matching cosmetic bags anyone?)

This kit came out a few years ago and I purchased my kit from Between Stitches. However, I just did an internet search, and it is still available at Fat Quarter Shop and at the Tula Pink website.

Getting Started

Step 1: First things first, label all the fabrics with the correct fabric code. A few of the pinkish background fabrics are a little tricky – is it peach? Is that pink paler than this one? Study the package image and trust your gut, it’s just quilting after all.

For pinning the mini labels on the fabrics, use those cheap, short pins that you hate. You know, the ones your MIL bought at an estate sale that you can’t stand for quilting because they are not p-e-r-f-e-c-t. My favorite pins are the flower head ones from Clover, but I’m open to suggestions! Let me know what pins you LOVE for quilting in the comments below.

Step 2: Fussy cut pineapple blocks from fabrics A, C, L, & Q.

For fabric A, I used my ruler to pick the half-way spot between the flamingo’s beaks:

For fabric L, I rough cut a rectangle a bit larger than 6 ½” wide, folded it right side out down the middle of the butterfly, aligned the 3 ¼” mark on the fold and trimmed the edges as needed:

Step 3: After the fussy cutting of these 4 fabrics is complete, cut the rest of pineapple bottoms and transfer the fabric labels to the 6 ½” x 8 ½” blocks. In addition to a pineapple bottom from fabric E, also cut 9 binding strips now so they are ready to go when the quilt is ready to be finished. Cut off the selvages too! And, if you are an overachiever, go ahead and piece the strips with a 45-degree seam and iron in half. If you are like me and can’t think about the binding at this point, just clip the strips together, add a label that clearly says “binding, don’t use for other stuff!” and keep the bundle somewhere safe.

Side note: if you have an AccuQuilt fabric cutter, you can certainly use it to cut the binding strips. For me, when I’m cutting new (and oh so fresh!) yardage, I don’t like the waste from using this tool. It’s great for scraps, for sure, but for perfectly pressed, shiny-new yardage I prefer to cut strips with my rotary cutter.

Step 4: Cut the pineapple tops from the solids. The pattern calls these the “tops”, but I call them “crowns” (because I’m fancy!). Whatever term you use, make sure to include it on your labels because the fabric codes start to get confusing. It’s helpful to see that the crown fabrics stop at AN, and the background fabrics start at AO.

Step 5: Cut the background fabrics from AO to AX and label each set.

Step 6: When the pineapple bottoms, tops, and backgrounds are all cut, create groupings based on backgrounds. You will have 10 groups – each will have 1 background fabric, 4 unique pineapple bottoms, and 2 sets of crowns. 

The “Pineapple Blocks” chart on page 6 of the pattern is helpful for checking off your groups as they are assembled.

Step 7: Woot! Time to start sewing! The sewing is not difficult– especially if you have Cluck Cluck Sew’s Diagonal Seam Tape for adding the 2” squares to the corner of the pineapple bottoms and the tops. If you haven’t used this tape before, here’s a great video on how to use it: Erica’s Quilt Quick Tips.

I sewed the pineapples in groups starting with the AO background group in the top right corner of the quilt to the AX background group in the bottom right corner.

Once the 40 pineapples are assembled, sew them into 5 rows and then sew the rows together to create the quilt top. Send the top off to your favorite longarm quilter 😉 for a tropical edge-to-edge design and pour yourself a Mai Tai, you did it!

I used Anne Bright Design pattern April Flowers for a happy fresh feel on the bright yellow minky.

P.S. This Creative Grids ruler would have been super helpful (gift idea!!):