Wish Upon a Star

Wish Upon a Star

48” x 48”

For a little baby boy, born to parents raised across the country , a quilt to make all the wishes. Or, just to spit up, poop, and play on. And hopefully keep you warm. Heading your way soon.

This quilt is a slight adaptation of a pattern by Kristyne Czepuryk in her recent book, Perfectly Pretty Patchwork. The only change I made was to skip the outside round of stars, thus reducing the overall size of the quilt. It was a definite change in making for me - using templates and all that precision piecing! Changing things up can be good though! Keeps you on your toes.

Most of Kristyne’s work is soft, pastel, and oh so pretty. It’s gorgeous stuff but not necessarily what I am drawn to for my own quilts. Not wanting to go shopping I decided to see what I could do with what was on hand. I’d been saving this Carolyn Friedlander print for a totally different project. It had been sitting long enough, however, and deserved to see some glory. The rest of the colours came from an Ikat butterfly print by Tula Pink. You can see it there in that corner star, and again on the back (below). The nice thing about this pattern is that I could dig through my stash and scrap bins to cut the diamonds for the stars. It meant a lot of variety; scrappy all the way. The prints used are a combination of old and newer, modern and boring, bright and simple. All together I think they balance nicely and create so much visual interest.

To quilt it I simply did an edge to edge wave, varying the thickness of the lines as I went. It was nice to have the change in texture from the points on the pattern. With a pattern like this I think you can really emphasize all those points with ditch or echo quilting, or you can contrast it. Bonus: contrasting it is easier. My thread choice was a dark turquoise Aurifil in my stash. It doesn’t stand out too much anywhere but doesn’t quite blend in. I rather love it.

Binding was an unexpected choice. I didn’t have enough of any green or yellow that worked to make it around all 4 sides. I debated using the same dominant blue print. Grey seems boring too. Then I spied this other Tula Pink in the stash. It’s a really cool pixelated print of tigers. (Both the binding and the inspiration/backing fabric are from her Eden line.) Cut for binding it looks totally different! I rather like the change and I think it frames the quilt nicely.

Again, because I couldn’t pop out to the store and wanting a backing done when I wanted it done I got creative with my stash. There wasn’t enough of the butterfly print to make it so I added these big blue dots (a leftover piece of Lotta Jansdotter fabric from our collaborative Lilla quilt) as a frame. This might be one of my favourite quilt backs ever.

Thank you for pushing me out of my box a little here Kristyne! I won’t lie, I’m a little sad to send this one out the door but a certain baby boy will surely appreciate it.

Morning Make - April 2020

Did you know that if you make one 12.5” square quilt block each day that you will have a quilt top at the end of the month? A lovely, cuddly size, perfect for couch snuggles. Also, perfect for mental health in the making of and finished product!

For Morning Make in the month of April I made one X Plus block each morning. It was actually quite nice to not have to think about anything but fabric selection. That’s one of the best parts, anyway! From start to finish - from picking fabrics to a sewn block - it took me about 30 minutes.

Let me tell you, I absolutely loved having a complete block at the end of each session. To have something tangible, something that marked the passage of the days, and something that gave me nothing but joy was EXACTLY what I needed this month. It’s probably what all of us needed this month! Covid Isolation is HARD, but we are doing all we can to keep our community safe and that means staying home. And for me, having this 30 minutes to sew before dealing with schooling and meltdowns (all of us) and keeping our business going was lifesaving.

Now when you make these blocks you cut off some decent sized triangles to be thrown in the scrap pile. Rather than be indiscriminate with these scraps I sewed the offcuts together as they came from the block. I was left with a pile of half square triangles. After doing some math and some sketching I decided to turn these HSTs into Sawtooth Stars. From 30 X Plus blocks I could make 30 Stars.

Two quilts for the price of one!

All the fabrics for these quilts came from my stash. Yes, I have a very, very deep stash. Quarantine is a great time to be able to shop from your stash, let me tell you. About halfway through I was worried I wouldn’t have enough light and low volume fabrics to get through but I dug through all the bins and was able to come up with some really great fabric combinations. Some fabrics are brighter than others, some even get a little bossy. I only chose fabric one block at a time and didn’t think about whether they would go together at all. Because my overall feel was low volume it comes together. Besides, the most successful of these X Plus quilts are scrappy and full of unexpected fabric delights!

Now if I did this for Morning Make every month I would have a great collection of quilt tops. Just the tops though because nothing would get quilted! Of course, that kind of thing has never stopped me before! And right now I am totally wishing I had access to a long arm because I would love to get these quilted right now. As it stands, I have 2 basted tops waited for their turn under the needle. I also think part of that may just be me wanting the change after nearly 8 weeks of social distancing. Let me go play in the quilt store! So I wish, but I am still happy to do my part and stay home (and shop online for curbside pick up).

My plan for May was to embrace Me Made May and tackle some clothing projects I’ve had on the list. But this happened toward the and of April. It seems 2/3 children are suddenly wanting to sew with the machine. While I am lucky enough to have a dedicated sewing room, it is not big enough to be set up for that many people with different sewing needs.

For those wondering, the X Plus blocks can be found as a free pattern all over the place. I believe the original block comes from the 1930s but it really peaked in popularity a few years back when we were all on Flickr. I used the 12.5” measurements in my Creative Live class on working with low volume fabrics. Indeed, I had 10 blocks leftover from samples from filming that I intended to use in this quilt, then decided to let April 2019 stand on its own. If anything needs to be defined it is these times.

Modern Mills and Stars from Perfectly Pretty Patchwork

Back when we could hang out with other people I had a lovely breakfast with Kristyne Czepuryk. We are lucky enough to live in the same city and get to hang out when our schedules allow. She shared a copy of her latest book with me. It is pretty and perfect and so bang on for her style, I love it. And right now, a lovely distraction from the real world. She asked me to make something from the book and share it as part of her book tour.

I chose the Mills and Stars pattern, one that has always appealed to me yet I’ve never made a single block. Because it is me, I changed up the colours quite a bit from Kristyne’s typical pastel palette. It works with the patterns in the book because they are classic, traditional patterns that be played with.

Mills and Stars can also be known by Hummingbird as well as Periwinkle. In fact, I remember Kristyne telling me the story of the block at that breakfast but it has slipped away from my brain.

I won’t lie, this quilt was a lot of work, especially for me. I am decidedly not a template person. Yet there I was cutting out hundreds of pieces for 73 blocks, each with 12 pieces of fabric in them. (I watched/listened to Fleabag, Dr. Thorne, and Austenland while I worked on it. Whatever it takes!) In the end, however, it was welcome work. A respite from the world to just get lost in someone else’s decision making. Once all the cutting is done it just becomes assembly line production. I always forget how fast the sewing goes when you’ve cut everything in advance. I did eventually finish.

The final quilt is a slight adaptation from the original pattern. I made it one row of stars all the way around smaller. My intention is to gift this as a baby quilt so I didn’t need it to be 60” square. I also used a single piece of the background around the center section, rather than what the pattern called for. Just to show off that cool Carolyn Friedlander fabric.

So often we think things aren’t ‘for us’. I won’t lie, the book is delightful and pretty, but it isn’t something I am instinctively drawn to. More often than not, however, it is about seeing shapes or projects beyond the fabric. Kind of like viewing a house you want to buy and ignoring the colour on the walls. I’m not a basic beige person in my house, but someone else may love it. I’d rather have lime green and that can turn off a whole new crowd of people. I think we all need to look at shapes and patterns more than fabric and colour when we see a book or a new quilt. That’s why I was drawn to this pattern myself. It was the mix of block sizes and the graphic nature of the block itself that grabbed me. I just had to add my own spin on it.

The books is full of classic designs and some really cool projects. For each block design there is a quilt pattern as well as a small project. And who is to say you can’t mix and match one block with another project? The instructions are attentive to detail, templates are included in a tear out sheet, and the photography is well, pretty. Kristyne has made a lovely book.

Snowflake Quilt

Snowflake Quilt

60“ x 72”

Pattern by Nicole Daksiewicz, Modern Handcraft

Anyone who follows me knows that I am not much of a pattern (or rule) follower. Once in a while, though, something just grabs my attention and won’t let go. From the first moment I saw the Snowflake pattern I knew I would make one. I tried to resist, honestly. But the design was too good to let it slip by. Then, shockingly, I went start to finish on this quilt quite quickly. The top did not sit for months or even years. I finished the top a little over a month ago and the last stitches went in the binding last week, making it the first finish of 2020.

The pattern itself provides instructions for making it a bold two colour quilt, one with four background stripes, or this scrappy option. And if you follow Nicole or the hashtag then you can see many, many more creative options people did. Things like plaid, diagonal stripes, fussy cutting. #snowflakequiltalong

I may have been following someone else’s pattern here, but I did stick true to my style, even if it wasn’t a deliberate decision to do so. Low volume and scrappy, please, you know I like it! While I did debate a four colour linen version I ditched it because of seam lines. Like panty lines, I didn’t want them visible.

My girls helped me baste the quilt - some crappy Christmas movie their entertainment - which made me very happy. Time together and voluntary help! It went so well I asked them to help me baste a second quilt but that is a different story.

While quilting I did attempt to do something a bit fancier but not really. To emphasize the snowflake I did point to point straight lines, a mimic crystal. The hardest part was making sure I repeated correctly on other points of the snowflake. My plans for the background were more intricate, then I reminded myself that you don’t see the quilting much on a scrappy mix of fabrics, so why go through the effort? Wavy lines for texture and to remind me of snowdrifts. It does add a nice contrast to the snowflake itself. All quilted with Aurifil 2600, that beautiful pale gray.

Because I love a contrast binding I was going to choose a pale pink to finish it off. However, I used the only pale pink in my stash on the back of the quilt! Binding went on just before Christmas when hibernation mode was strong and the budget was gone. Into the stash for this lovely gray instead! I’m pretty sure the pink and the grey (plus some of the blues) are Uppercase fabrics. All the fabrics came from my stash.

A number of family members are trying to lay claim on the quilt. My husband would be glad to see another quilt out the door, but this one is going to keep me snuggled for this winter at least. It’s only January so there is a lot more winter to come. That means a lot more snuggling.