Stash Stars- March’s Quilt of the Month

One of these days I will get around to posting in between the “Quilt of the Month” posts…but for now it’s been hard to find the time! ( I am making a quilt a month after all!!)

For those of you who are new here, I have been working steadily though a goal to make a quilt every month this year. I’m on #3 (March) but if you’d like to read about #1 (January) you can click HERE, or #2 (February) you can click HERE.

For March’s quilt I chose “Stash Stars” a great pattern by Terry Atkinson.

We were lucky enough to have Terry come teach at our store a few years ago, and I was so impressed with the clear way she is able to both teach and write patterns. If you have never made one of Terry’s quilts, you should! They are so easy to do and come out beautifully. I chose my favorite Andover Textured Solids for my stars, and just plain white Kona cotton as the background- it was such fun to stack all those colors together and play with combinations. The basic block construction was very simple, and the beauty of the stars is that the points are floating, so if you are a little bit off with your accuracy (which of course none of us EVER are), you can easily hide it!

You essentially make a whole bunch of flying geese with fat bottoms (fat bottomed geese?) and then arrange them around your center block.

Because I am a serial chain piecer,  I made all my geese at once and then sewed as much as I could at once (maybe I was trying to avoid the quilt aerobics, you know cut, sew, press, pin, repeat- all while running circles around the sewing room).

Once you have all of your blocks done you have to figure out how to arrange them…

I wish I had taken more photos of the various layouts I played with, but I eventually decided on this one, (looks like I need a bigger design wall!)

By now you know that the quilting is my favorite part of this whole project, and after last months heartbreak of not seeing all the quilting I did because it got lost in the busy background- I was determined not to let the quilting get lost on this quilt! I conducted a quick Facebook poll on what color thread to use to quilt this with- I didn’t want to change colors in every block (I’m not THAT crazy), and I wasn’t crazy about the idea of using monofilament. The internet and I decided that using a light grey thread would be the way to go this time, although I debated using off white, yellow, or even a pale green- I don’t think there’s a right answer to the thread color question, but it’s what I decided on!

I used white thread for the white borders and filled them in with a random pattern of lines, bubbles and stars. I haven’t done a whole lot of marking on my quilts up to this point, but for the stars in the borders I cut out a card stock version of the big star and traced it with a water soluble pen.  I use a 1/4″ thick acrylic quilters ruler for my line work- it’s one of my most used sewing room items!

Progress..

 

 

This quilt took a LONG time to quilt, but it was SO worth it in the end. I LOVE looking at the finished product-

This quilt is on display at our East Aurora location..stop by and see!

And as always- here’s a sneak peek of next month’s quilt!

What are you guys working on?

Modern Log Cabin…Quilt 1 in a year of Quilts!

So here we are at the very first post in “a Year of Quilts”! Click HERE to read about my lofty goal to make 12 quilts this year.

I’ve been inspired by this fun line of fabric by Mark Cesarik that we picked out a while back called “Summer Camp“.  It was a line that I was intrigued by, perhaps because my husband is an avid outdoorsman and I have learned to enjoy and embrace the rustic style of fishing, hunting and camping motifs.

Summer Camp by Mark Cesarik

When a new collection of modern “basics” arrived last month that included some great prints by Joel Dewberry (the line is called True Colors), I knew I had to combine some of each of these collections into a “Modern Rustic Log Cabin” quilt.

Some of Joel Dewberry’s True Colors

 The third part of the puzzle was a quilt of the cover of a great book we have at the shop Called “Modern Designs for Classic Quilts” by Kelly Biscopink  and Andrea Johnson.

This bright log cabin quilt has been calling to me for quite some time and one snowy evening at the shop inspiration struck and I quickly pulled together a pile of “outdoorsy” fabrics and two of our fabulous new textured solids from Andover for the neutrals. If you haven’t seen our textured solid collection stop by the shop and check these out.

These textured solids are 100% cotton and are great to work with. They have an almost nubby texture and add some real dimension to your quilting. I anticipated that they might be tough to work with but I had no issues what so ever with raveling or stretch. I chose a cream and a white as the background fabrics for this quilt.

Confession alert! I did not photograph the piecing process of making this quilt as I had not yet decided to embark on the Year of Quilts project. The cutting process was quite straight forward, just lots and lots of 2.5″ strips and a few 4″ squares. The pattern designer doesn’t re-invent the wheel with the construction of the log cabin block, you start in the middle and work your way around! I hope you’ll forgive the lack of assembly photos but what is done is done!

Included with this Year of Quilts goal of mine is to QUILT all of my quilts. I am lucky enough to have a Baby Lock Tiara at home and am truly loving the quilting aspect of making a quilt. Often the process of piecing a quilt can be meditative and spending the quiet time piecing the quilt will often tell me what sort of quilting it needs to have.

When I’m pinning at home I’ll pin on the work table in my husband’s shop so get used to the view of equipment and tools in the background.  How many of you pin on the dining room table, kitchen floor, or out in the garage? I love hearing how/where people pin! Some people HATE the pinning process, but I don’t mind it that much…it’s another meditative process. Who knew I was so Zen about quilting!

When this quilt was talking to me, it was begging me for wood grain quilting. It was my first attempt at quilting wood grain but I just went for it and as long as you don’t look too close, I think it turned out pretty darn good! Fast forward in time about 10 hours of quilting wood grain ( does anyone else feel like the quilting is never going to end, but as soon as you finish it is all SO worth it?) and it was time to hang the quilt at our East Aurora Location. Drumroll please…….!!!

What do you think? Do you like it as much as I do? If you are in the East Aurora area I hope you’ll come see it in person! So there “He” is, Quilt #1 in the Year of Quilts! It’s definitely a “He” don’t you think?

That will do it for January’s installment of the Year of Quilts and to keep you coming back, here is a sneak peek of February’s quilt!

What have you finished in January?