String Stars Baby Quilt

There is a new small person joining my world in the next few months.  (Before you get excited, it's not me expecting!)  I want to make a baby quilt to be ready for their arrival.  Now, I do not know if we are expecting a small boy or girl, so this will have to be a unisex quilt.   In my head, you can never go wrong with scrappy stars - they're unisex, right?  This time around I am going to give string stars a go.

Using the tutorial by Corey on Coriander Quilts, I printed out 72 templates and started stitching.   I had cut a whole pile of 1 inch strings to stitch onto the paper templates, so these came together quite quickly.  It was very meditative and I loved seeing the fabrics I loved finding a space next to one another.  It is like being reunited with old friends.

After an IG poll, I have decided to use Essex Linen Medium Aqua as the background fabric.  The lavender cross hatch did indeed win the popular vote, but when I had a good look at it in real life I did not like it nearly as much as I did the linen.  You have to go with your gut, right? 

This will be the last I show you of this quilt until the baby arrives.  I need to keep a bit of surprise for when it is gifted.  Until then, know I am quietly stitching away, loving every bit of it.  

Oops! Forgot this one!

I completely forgot to tell you about this bit of happiness.  A finish!  I have not had a finish in ages.

I had a orphan block from my Twinkle Twinkle bee quilt that joined me in Jen Kingwell's hand quilting class at the Fat Quarterly retreat.  I recently spent evenings echo quilting the star, straight line quilting the red boarder and then quilting triangles into the outer pink boarder.

I then was stuck.  The star needed more, but it took me ages to find inspiration.  Or for inspiration to find me.  Eventually I remembered that I had stencils for orange peels so I thought I would give them a try between the star points.  And they worked!

The back is an envelope closure of teal blue, coordinating with the front.  This is my first cushion cover, so I could not envision how it would come together.  Now that I have one down, I think I could try a zip in my next version. 

And so it lives on the living room couch.  It has been napped on, curled up on and snuggled by the dog.  It adds a super spot of color and makes me happy every time I see it.  Needless to say, I'm already plotting my next!

Mini Star Quilt Finish

A short post to say hello and show you a little mini quilt finish.  I recently dug through my unfinished projects cabinet and found an old test block that I had started to hand quilt.  Are you ready for how long ago I started this?  The text block was in 2012 and I started hand quilting it as part of my 2013 Fat Quarterly Retreat classes.  Goodness how time flies.  Anyway, it was tucked away and I completely forgot about it.  

So I brought it along with me for a weekend of camping.  There I finished hand stitching it and hand stitched the binding onto the back.  I washed it when we got home and it kind of warped a bit (upper left corner).  I think I'll give it a press (can you press out wonkiness?) and will pop it up on the sewing room wall.  Happy happy happy little finish!  

It's Worth the Effort

I love foundation paper piecing.  I know it drives some of you mental, but for me there is nothing better.  It gives me an excuse to pull out my crayons.  The template tells you where to stitch, so you don't have to pay attention to that quarter inch seam, AND you get the pointiest of points in your final block.  Win win win.

Over the weekend I pulled out my trusty star templates and started stitching.  Much to my surprise they came together WAY easier than I thought they would.  Only once did I really really mess it up, but that was my own fault for sewing while tired.

I was very lucky to not run out of my chosen fabrics. I had forgotten how much wastage there is when paper piecing and I really wanted to have some left over to pull these colors/prints through to the borders.  I came quite close to the end of my red pin fabric, but squeezed out every last drop from the FQ I had.  Whew!

I have all 8 sections pieced now and I'm trying to put them together in quarters, halves and then into the final block.  Now here my system of simple sewing on the line is breaking down.  I am not getting the lovely matching seams and pointy points that I would like to have.  I think it's because I can not quite feel the seams to align them with the two pieces of paper on either side.  The four layers are also quite thick to sew through and a little slippy with the paper running along the faceplate.  I have started to rip out the paper from two of my sections to see if I have better luck stitching them together.  I will let you know how that goes.

With any luck, I will have a finished block tonight.  I have to start thinking now about borders and placement.  Will this block go on point? Or what borders will I add to bring it to 15 inches?  I'll probably mess with a few options and ask your thoughts on IG (@fluffysheepquilting) later this week.

The two quarters on the right have been joined together, so there's a bit gap
with the "used" seam allowance.

My, these look dingy in the dark evening light. They're really quite vibrant
and pretty....honest!

In other news, did you see that Rapture, by Pat Bravo, has arrived in the shop?  This line is just gorgeous and, as with all Art Gallery Fabric prints the texture of the fabric is just divine.  This was supposed to arrive at FSQ back in December, but was stuck in Korea for nearly 2 months!  I nearly cried when it finally arrived!

Scrappy Mini Stars: A tutorial

Hello to all of my new friends from the SMS giveaway day!  It's so nice to meet you all.  How is your giveaway week going so far?  Meeting lots of new folks?  Found a few super new-to-you blogs?  I hope you are having a blast!  If you are looking for the FSQ giveaway post, simply click here.

Several weeks ago, I posted photos of quilts that caught my eye at the Knitting and Stitching Show.  In particular a quilt by Margaret Cunnanne got Helen and I chatting thinking it would be a great block to request in a bee.

Quilt by Margaret Cunnane of Galway.

I asked Margaret for a pattern, but she did not have luck finding one to share with us.  I thought, then, that I would go ahead and sort it out for myself.

With the idea that this could be made with charm squares, I decided to base everything on a 2.5 inch (unfinished) square.  To make 1 block at 12.5x12.5 inches unfinished, you will need:

4 (white) squares 2.5x2.5 inches for star centers

32 (white) squares 1.5x1.5 inches for star points

8 (scrappy) rectangles 2.5x4.5 inches as the bridge between star points

16 (scrappy) squares 2.5x2.5 inches

I wanted to use my rainbow charms to make the scrappy four patches you see between each star.  You could just as easily do all of this right from your scrap basket.  It's up to you.  All seams are 0.25 inches.

Cut the 5 inch charm into two halves, each 2.5x5 inches long.  

Sew two 2.5x5 inch blocks together (sewing right sides together) and press the seam to one side.  

Cut this in half, creating a 2.5x4.5 inch rectangle comprised of two scrappy squares.  

If you want coordinated four patches, just flip and re-sew the two halves together as you see in Margaret's quilt above.  I went for scrappy look, so I mixed and matched 2.5x4.5 inch rectangles to make a four patch.

Nest the two seams together (fabrics right sides together) to create a sharp point, pin and sew.  Press the seam to one side.

Create 4 four patches for each block.

To create the star points, draw a diagonal line on the back of each 1.5x1.5 inch square.  

Align this square with one corner of the 2.5x4.5 inch rectangle and sew ON THE LINE.  

Cut the extraneous fabric 0.25 inches from the seam and press. (Darn these winter night time photos - that little corner square is white in real life!)

Repeat this for all 4 corners in all eight 2.5x4.5 scrappy rectangles.  They will be like double sided flying geese blocks.  Flying geese are absolutely not my strong suit, so I would normally square them before going further.  

Layout the pieces as arranged below.  Sew the pieces together in rows, pressing the seams of each row in alternating directions.

Sew the rows together into a block.  Pin all of the nesting seams so that you are sure to have a sharp corner, then press press press.

That's it!  A super easy peasy scrappy star block.  Putting two together gives a better idea of the repeating pattern.

If you decide to use this tutorial to make a block of your own, please let me know if there are difficult-to-understand sections or if the math just does not add up for you.  I'll happily adjust the tute with your contributions.

Happy sewing!

Edited: It's just been pointed out to me there's a similar tutorial here.  Click on over and have a peek for another variation with more coordinated fabrics.  Pretty pretty!

Little Star Baby Quilt

You know how a quilt idea can get stuck in your head and that's all you think about for days?  Thursday evening I started thinking of this little baby quilt top and the idea just kept festering for hours and hours.  I even had a dream about it Thursday night!  By Friday I was fit to burst, so I got home from work and started sewing immediately.   IG followers (@fluffysheepquilting) have already seen the photos, but I wanted to toss this out for all to see and comment.

In a little sunny corner of my kitchen I pulled out the Chaos  home made scrap fabric and a bit of Kona to create a smaller version of the Giant Star Quilt.  I just used 8 inch square blocks (with a 15.5x15.5 inch center block) to either make a full baby quilt top (finishing at 30.5x30.5) or one quarter of a four star lap quilt for myself.  

I was feeling pretty good about making either one of these before Kat chimed in on IG suggesting it's really the start of a medallion quilt for myself, growing border after border.  Man!  Now there's yet another idea festering in my head...all weekend long!  

I am curious to hear what you guys think this should become.  Right now my heart (and out of control quilty brain) have kind of settled on this becoming a shop baby quilt (with the addition of another border) and I start a medallion quilt for myself using a different, more neutral background print.  What do you think?

Modern Irish Bee: March

The super fab Erin is our queen bee for March.  She had asked us to each choose a color that we liked (and had in our stash) and then sent out a beautiful little parcel of 7 coordinating prints.  We were to insert one of our fabrics as the 8th.  I choose yellow, mostly because I like how happy yellow things make me.

With her super LV background print and her pretty yellow fabrics, I made two stars for Miss Erin.

With each star being monochromatic, this is going to be one super quilt!  Erin already has back the green stars and she took it upon herself to make the brown.  If I'm honest, I like the brown stars more than I thought I would...Mine are in the post, Erin.  You should have them tomorrow.  Hope they suit what you've already gathered together!

If you're all about Bloglovin, just page down one post for a link to follow Fluffy Sheep Quilting.

Starry Eyed

As you may remember, I am Miss January in the Sew and Bee Happy bee.  This is my first time being a queen mama bee, choosing a block, finding the background fabric, etc.  It was a bit bumpy at the start, but I think we're rolling now.  As we are truly international, some folks received their packages within the week and others are still waiting for them.  So it goes.

Much to my surprise, the first few bee packages are already returning to me!  Want to see what arrived recently?

These beauties are from Judith.  I am really digging yellow right now as it brightens up the long, chilly January Irish nights.  Can you see in one block there's a little embroidered flower?  And the cute little dogs and giraffe in the other?  They're just fantastic.

And this beauty is from Emma.  I just love the bold colors she used.

I was so jazzed by the arrival of these goodies I made a few of my own....

To create the quilt I have in mind I'll need 36 of these lovely blocks.  I have 9 done...only 27 to go! 

Stargazing

I am lucky enough to be Miss January!  Um, no. Not in a pin-up calendar, but for the Sew & Bee Happy bee!  As soon as I bought Modern Blocks, I knew I had to use Stargazing as my block for this scrappy bee.  I could not be more excited!

I finished off two test blocks today.  They went pretty well, but I learned a few things.  First, you need to carefully choose your scraps so that the fabric is a color. Stating the obvious, I know, but do you see that small pink star above?  For two points I chose a white fabric with a pink print but when it was used in the block, there wasn't enough contrast to see the point.  I will replace that little star tonight.

Second, if you go too tall with your points or they will be cropped when you piece the blocks together.  There is one point cropped in the blue star and one that will be cropped as soon as I join this block to the next.  So it goes - live and learn.  Do you see the little red star here?  I did better on try two :)

Anyway, I think this will make a fantastic quilt.  I will put these blocks into the quilt top with different orientations so the stars are scattered.  I will make a few large 12.5 inch wonky stars as well to add a little variety.  Can not wait to see this top finished off!