Star Quilt

For the last month or so I have been making a star quilt.

It is going to be a present for someone and originally I was going to make a crazy quilt including lots of photos of the person but I was running out of time and I wasn't sure that the end result would be very attractive.
My next thought was a hexagon quilt, with largish hexagons some of which would include photos. When I was discussing it with a friend she said that hexagons can be quite time consuming, even the quilt as you go type.

So it was back to the drawing board for me. The latest Quilters Companion Magazine arrived in my letter box and as I was looking through the magazine a quilt pattern caught my eye.

Quilters Companion issue 63

The quilt was called Dark Waters and it happened to be close to the colours I was thinking of using plus it was a star quilt and I have always been partial to stars. I must confess that I also liked it because it was a basic star and a nine patch and so I thought it wouldn't take very long to make.

Dark Waters by Toni Brazendale

The quilt by Toni Brazendale was 89"x89", much larger than I wanted and it had a kite shape in the corner of the stars that I decided to leave out.

I re-drew the pattern in EQ7 and made the blocks and quilt much smaller. I haven't read the instructions in the magazine but the blocks must be much larger than my 9" because my quilt is going to measure 56"x56".

I strip pieced the nine patches.

 I had a few different combinations of strips because I added an extra colour than was in the original pattern as well.

Nine patch block

The block measures 9 inches so all the little squares are 1" finished.

I did all the nine patches first and then I started on the stars.

I was very happy this afternoon because I completed the last star and put the blocks up on my design wall.

Blocks on my design wall

I was really happy and had a smile on my face that I had finished at last. What was I thinking! I am not finished! I still have to sew these blocks together and then baste and quilt it and then put on the binding as well!!

I suppose I had better get sewing.

Bye for now,
Linda