More Tesselating Stars!

Today was the last class for the monthly miniatures and as usual, these quilts were amazing! Really, these quilters consistently produce the most wonderful quilts injected with their own unique touches. I love to watch at the beginning of each class when they pull out their fabrics and see what colour combinations they come up with. Sometimes I can see a fabric combination and guess which quilter probably brought it, but then sometimes they totally surprise me with a whole new colourway! It is so much fun to see what they will come up with each month. And then they add their own creative ideas with different border treatments, quilting designs, and embellishments.
Below is the quilt of a student from last month who brought her project to show at guild meeting, and as I wrote in a previous blog entry, I was a little overwhelmed at that meeting with so many exciting things going on, and so I apologize for the poor quality photograph. However you can see yet another colour combination for this design.
I sure will miss these classes and these quilters over the summer break!

Tesselating Sunshine Stars

I finished the binding today on another Tesselating Stars quilt. This one was made with a pack of "Sunshine" moda 5" charm squares. I love these little packages that Moda makes...I get to play with a whole new line of fabric and make a little quilt without spending huge amounts of money. I think this package had approximately 40 squares and I only have 2 left over, plus tiny scraps. I pieced together 9 charms for the backing, cut up scraps for the border and only had to purchase a piece of fabric for the binding. The stars are 3" and the finished quilt size is 12 1/2" square.

I love this pattern and have made it several times. You can see two of my previous quilts here.

Not only did I enjoy sewing this design again, I had a blast with the machine quilting! I quilted a swirly pinwheel in each star and a freemotion feather in the border. I used one of my favorite threads - Sulky blendables (which is a varigated thread) in a colour called "Butter & Sky".

When my friend Judy saw my blog post on May 18th, she deconstructed the design and figured out how to make the quilt herself using a 5" block! She brought it over to quilt at my studio last week and here is her version. What a great idea she had to use the black for the outside partial stars!
Tomorrow is my last miniature quilt class for the season and I will get to see the projects from last month's star class. This was the class where I copied the handouts in reverse, so I wonder what their stars will look like!! Check back tomorrow night to see what they did!

Tesselating Stars

I have been so busy this week that I haven't had much time for quilting. However I have

organized some hand work projects to take along to all the outdoor activities I will be forced to do this weekend!!! I have an embroidery pattern to work on, which I am looking forward to since I haven't done this type of stitching in a long time.

If you are interested in making a tesselating star quilt in a lap size, I am teaching this class at Reichards on May 31st. I promise not to copy the layout design in reverse!! ( See this post for details on that mistake!)

The quilt on the right is the full size quilt that I made for my one of my nephews. It has a 12" star block. The quilt on the left is the miniature size block, which you could also make in this class on May 31st if you want to, and it has a 3" star block. This design is by Cindy Thury Smith and I have her permission to teach this class. It is the perfect project for using up scraps! If you want to join us for a fun day of turning your scraps into a great quilt, call Leslie at Reichards to register and get the supply list.