First Light Designs

The first month of 2014 has come and gone. Didn’t it go fast? It sure did for me! I got quite caught up in January making blocks for my Reach for the Stars sampler quilt (see the three previous posts) but still managed to complete a five-year-old Unfinished Object.

That would be Checkerboard Square, designed by Alex Anderson and featuring her line of fabric, Never Enough Romance, for P&B Fabrics. My progress as of Jan. 12:

As of Jan. 30, the inner section of the quilt was pieced:

And on the last day of the month I got the borders sewn on. I had to wait till today to photograph the completed top outdoors. I woke up to overcast skies and no breeze — perfect! — but by the time I was ready to take photos, the sun had come out and was reaching for the only part of the back deck — the arbor — where I could hang my quilt top. And a breeze had come along with the sun.

This is the best shot, taken between puffs of air that caused the quilt to billow:

The top measures 75½” x 92½”. I added an inch and a half to the outer borders so it’s about 3″ longer and wider than the pattern measurements. Sometime in February I’ll make a backing (and think up a name) for this top.

As much as I’d love to start work on the next Reach for the Stars block, there’s a different Work-in-Progress calling my name, one that needs a little free motion quilting. I’m gearing up for it.

Thanks for stopping by!

Yesterday I finished Block 2 of Reach for the Stars, a lovely sampler quilt featured in Quilter’s Newsletter, with directions spaced over seven issues beginning with Oct./Nov. 2013. The quilt, designed by Terri Krysan, features a center medallion surrounded by 14 blocks, all on point.

I’ve already posted pictures of my Blocks 1 and 3 and the center medallion. To refresh your memory:

And here is Block 2:

The magazine’s cutting and piecing directions are abbreviated at best, so I am studying each block in advance, challenging myself to figure out how to cut the fabrics and piece the components in a way that will yield the most accurate final block measurements.

Case in point: the hourglass blocks in the corner squares.

Each corner block contains two squares — one green and one blue, in my version — and two hourglass blocks, each composed of two blue and two green triangles.  The hourglass blocks are sewn to the squares, forming a 4″ finished square. Each hourglass block finishes at 2″ square.

The magazine calls for the hourglass sections to be cut from 3-1/4″ squares. To be precise, four quarter-square triangles cut from one square. Do you have any idea how small these triangles would be and how difficult it would be to sew the bias edges together and press them without any distortion? I know I couldn’t do it. I press with a heavy hand and am sure I would wind up with wonky hourglass blocks.

I hit upon the idea of cutting my hourglass blocks from 4-patches, “popping” the center seam open so the intersections would be nice and flat. Then I cut the 4-patches on the diagonal into 2½” squares:

That hourglass block has bias edges but each edge is sewn to a straight-of-grain edge so no problem there. I’ll outline the full method if there is interest.

Jennifer Gwyn at Seams Crazy has finished her center medallion and made Block 1, and both are just beautiful! Be sure to take a look at her most recent posts. Sherri Crisp of Knoxville, Tennessee is sewing along with us, and Jennifer has a photo on her blog of Sherri’s center medallion. Simply gorgeous! Another quilter, Jennifer Thacker of Houston, Texas has started Reach for the Stars, too, and we are looking forward to seeing her blocks revealed.

The Feb./March 2014 issue of Quilter’s Newsletter is out now, with directions for Blocks 4, 5, and 6. I understand that Sherri is paper-piecing her RFTS blocks. As I look ahead to Block 5, I think I may give that method a try for part of the block. Stay tuned!

It took the better part of a day but I finished Block 1 of Reach for the Stars, a queen-size sampler quilt designed by Terri Krysan of Lakeville, Minnesota:

The editors of Quilter’s Newsletter magazine, in which the directions are currently appearing as part of a seven-part series, have placed the project under the category “Challenging Workbook,” and they’re not kidding. The blocks are more complex than they appear. Just look at how many points and/or seams have to be matched in the block above. Two dozen, if I counted correctly!

Here is Block 1 in its proper orientation on point:

Oh dear. It’s disappearing on my design wall because of the white background. Here’s a look at it on black fabric:

Block 1 is one of 14 surrounding a center medallion. So far I’ve made the center medallion and two blocks:

The smaller blocks are 12″ (17″ on point), and the center medallion is 26″ (37″ on point).

Jennifer at Seams Crazy is also making Reach for the Stars, in an absolutely gorgeous neutral palette of cream and tan and black. She’s currently working on the center medallion, and it is going to be a knockout! I know of a couple of other quilters who are thinking about making this quilt. Wouldn’t it be fun to have our own little community of quilters who are Reaching for the Stars?

No, you didn’t miss Blocks 1 and 2. I haven’t made them yet. The block you see above is number 3, one of 14 different blocks that surround a center medallion in a gorgeous quilt, Reach for the Stars, designed by Terri Krysan. Her quilt was featured in the Oct./Nov. 2013 issue of Quilter’s Newsletter . . .

(Copyright Quilter’s Newsletter. Used with permission. Photo by Melissa Karlin Mahoney.)

. . . and I decided to make it, using fabrics in my stash and a different colorway. The magazine is offering directions in a seven-part series that began with the Oct./Nov. 2013 issue.

Block 3 is in the upper right hand corner in the original quilt. It is set on point, so this is the proper orientation for my Block 3:

I have two spectacular Jacobean florals in my fabric mix and will be looking for ways to use them. Perhaps I should challenge myself to incorporate a fussy-cut image into every block.

I made the center medallion block a couple of weeks ago. Since then I’ve added a black strip, the first of two sashings:

The medallion block now measures 26″ square; on point it measures 37″ at the widest point. Once I have a few more blocks made, I’ll decide whether the second set of sashing strips should be aqua or green.

Reach for the Stars is the name of a beautiful sampler quilt designed by Terri Krysan of Lakeville, Minnesota and quilted by Page Johnson of Rosemount, Minnesota. It was pictured on the cover of the Oct./Nov. 2013 issue of Quilter’s Newsletter magazine:

I remember thinking “how pretty!” when my magazine came in the mail in October but I didn’t give it another thought until reading this post by Jennifer of Seams Crazy. Jennifer really fell hard for this quilt, and that prompted me to take another look. I fell too! Quilter’s Newsletter was starting a seven-part series beginning with the Oct./Nov. issue but I wasn’t ready to take on a new project. For starters, I had plenty of quilts on my to-do list, not to mention various Works-in-Progress (WIPs) and Unfinished Objects (UFOs).

But the idea was planted . . . and it took root. This week it dawned on me that I had the perfect collection of fabric already in my stash. Not the tans and creams featured in Terri Krysan’s quilt. As a matter of fact, I have almost no tans in my stash. What I do have is lots of blues and greens, which go perfectly with the Ainsley line of Northcott fabrics that I bought well over a year ago in a moment I can only describe as fabric lust.

Over the last couple of days I auditioned various fabric combinations and started work on Part 1 of the series, the center medallion, basically a star within a star within a star, with hourglass blocks added to the mix. Here is my medallion block:

It’s even more dramatic set on point, as in the pattern:

The block has two sets of sashing strips but I am going to wait till I have a few more blocks made before deciding on my sashing fabrics.

I’m already three blocks behind, as the Dec. 2013/Jan. 2014 issue of Quilter’s Newsletter has been out for weeks and I expect the Feb./March 2014 issue, with directions for the next three blocks, to be in my mailbox any day now. I’m going to take my time, though, making each block when time and inspiration arrive at the same time.

What about you? Is anyone else out there Reaching for the Stars? It might be fun to share our progress and cheer each other on!