Elizabeth Hartman’s Dinosaur Quilt Pattern Review

Ever since I first heard about Elizabeth Hartman I have been dying for an excuse to make one of her patterns. Everyone seems to love her designs and they’re always super cute but the right excuse never really came up. I’d thought about making one of them for myself with my free time – but really, what free time? So I’d just occasionally stalk her web store fantasizing about her quilts and just waiting for the right moment.

Then a family member announced their pregnancy and they liked dinosaurs and I didn’t even have to think about it – I knew exactly what I wanted to make her! I grabbed up Elizabeth Hartman’s Dinosaurs Sampler and started shopping for fabric.

I really love the T-Rex. He looks like he’s excitedly telling his other dinosaur friends a cool story.

This pattern has instructions for both a large and a small quilt. The pattern is set up with the color scheme for the small quilt being more of a monotone while the large quilt is done in a gradient. I made the small quilt but I wanted the gradient so I diverted from the instructions here to do my own color scheme. Fortunately she breaks down what’s in each block so after I figured out my colors I was able to easily figure out what I would need to cut.

I worked two blocks at a time.

Normally I would cut everything at the start and then do all the sewing but I was worried I would lose a lot of the tiny pieces. I did cut all the background at the beginning since that was all the same color and I was a bit disappointed that there was quite a bit of fabric waste. I understand the reason she wrote the pattern that way was because she was trying to simplify the cutting instructions and I can’t honestly say I’d do it any differently – I think it’s just a sacrifice you have to make for such an intricate quilt.

This Stegosaurus was my favorite of the bunch.

The only real complaint I have is that a couple of illustrations were unclear. When you’re working with a block that is ¼” longer on one edge, it’s kind of hard to tell which side should be the top when the picture pretty much looks like a square. A measurement indicator on those would have helped.

Really though, I’m kind of nit-picking here to find issues with the pattern. I like pictures more than written instructions and I pieced nearly all of it based off the pictures alone. I only needed to refer to the written instructions a couple times, mostly to make sure I was using the right pieces. Both the instructions and the diagrams were excellently done.

This quilt pattern is a good challenge for your piecing skills. I discovered that I’m really good at sewing a consistent ¼” seam allowance but my diagonals could use some work.

This is a pretty complex pattern with lots of tiny pieces. It reminded me a bit of putting together a jigsaw puzzle (which is something I actually love) – so this was right up my alley! It’s probably not going to be everyone’s cup of tea. You have to proceed carefully and there’s a good chance you’ll make a few mistakes. But I really feel that the end product was worth it! I’d love to make another one of these again!

Pros

• Great design
• Well written
• Includes color chart with suggestions
• Detailed cutting diagrams

Cons

• Large fabric wastage
• A couple of diagrams were unclear as to which side was up

Could Be Either (Depending On Personal Tastes)

• Lots of tiny pieces in a lot of different sizes