Monday, May 7, 2012

About the quilt at the top

It occurs to me that I never wrote a blog about the quilt I chose for the top.  It's called Stars Galore and I made it during the summer I was In the 'Quilt Blocks on American Barns' Block Party with Eleanor Burns.  El runs a 'Block Party' every year to test her patterns (for books and lately also for her Signature patterns.)  Pics below are 6" blocks quilt (made the book!!!), the 3" blocks followed by the 12" blocks that made a generous queen-size.



In May 2009 she gave us the Americana Star block to test and, somewhat tongue in cheek, suggested I make a bedsize quilt out of it.  (I'm afraid I've developed a reputation of being an over-achiever.)  Well, I went home (some 300 miles away from Quilt in a Day and class.....) and made my block in 12", 6" and 3" size.  I had decided I needed the additional challenge of converting all the blocks really small, had just gotten into small quilts. 

After doing those, I thought, what the heck and grabbed some red/white/blue fabrics and got started.  After making several American Star blocks I made a 'mistake' and put the wrong color in the middle of the little star (blue, rather than white).  Oh no, what to do, fix it?  No!  A new design is born.  Then, tired of all those flying geese (I almost called the quilt 'Too many geese'!) I took a look at the 6" version, scaled it up to a 12" finished block and made a bunch for my alternate blocks (has 4 few geese per block!!!!).  Sashing--I need to figure sashing....decided to add star points to the cornerstones, looks like an X from a distance, but you can see the stars close-up!
On design wall in progress
Finished up the sashing and decided to do the ribbon border from Victory Quilts (same size quilt so it worked out really easy--don' tknow the name of the part but you use the QST and HST part of Hope of Hartford to make the ribbon border.  Need to take a pic!  See finished version up top!  (It made the book, her TV show and even Quilt mag.)

3 comments:

Barb said...

Your quilt is just fabulous...totally love it!

West Michigan Quilter said...

Love your quilts. What fun it must be to be a tester. Love your Red, White, Blue quilt. I've been looking for a pattern to make a Quilts of Valor. Those little mistakes makes a creative quilt!

Marcia - Crafty Sewing and Quilting said...

I am finally getting around to welcoming New quilters to the NEW Quilt Blog Linky Party! Welcome! Thanks for adding the button for others to find it! Enjoy your day!