Blogger's Quilt Festival -- Star Play Quilt

Hi! Welcome to the Blogger's Quilt Festival! If you've made it all the way to my post -- number six hundred and something -- your fortitude is amazing (and you should probably go to bed now)!

I'd like to show you all my favorite quilt of the year -- this star quilt.
This quilt started as a test star block for a virtual quilting bee. I hung it on my inspiration board and looked at it for three or four months. I loved the colours and the pattern, so eventually I decided to gather some of my favorite scraps and make some more.

I worked on the star blocks in between other projects, pieced here and there over about two months. I really liked this quilt by Jaquie and so I framed my blocks with some lovely chandalier fabric I had been saving for something special. Then I was at an impasse:

What to do next? Lay them next to each other? Put more brown and yellow around them? Sash them in blue? White? Straight? Wonky? I put the call out on Flikr and a few of my Flikr friends chimed in. I decided to lay them unevenly and sash them in white. Then I added the borders -- I didn't have enough to use any one print for my borders, so I improvised and made a double thin and thick border in a log cabin style. I didn't realize when I cut this out that this would involve some tricky set in seams, but I thin it was worth it for the effect. That red peony fabric is one of my favorites ever, and I used up all that I had to make the border.

This quilt is special to me for several reasons. It is my most original, improvised large quilt so far. I usually just play with mini quilts for swaps, but do simple, safe designs like squares or rectangles for my larger quilts. This was my first time taking a lot of inspiration from different sources and making them my own, and I am so happy with the results.

The other reason this quilt is special is because I did most of the stitching during the last three months of my pregnancy with my daughter. I made this for us to snuggle under during late night nursings on the couch and for her to play with on the floor. I finished it about four days before I gave birth to her, so the timing was perfect. All through the long winter when the sun is low and cool in the sky, this quilt kept me feeling warm and cheered.

And this quilt has been our living room quilt, making it the go to quilt for everything. As I was looking through my photos of the last year to choose a quilt for this quilt festival, this one kept appearing everywhere:

We all use it every day. And that is the main reason why I enjoy quilting. I like to make quilts for my family and friends (and once in a while even for me) that can become a part of the fabric of their daily lives. Quilts that will bring warmth and joy into people's lives. I want to make quilts that they will use until they are threadbare and well worn.

So that is my favorite quilt of the year. My happy quilt. Hope you like it as much as I do. To see over 500 other great quilts, go here:



Enjoy the rest of the festival, everyone!