I thought I was done making blocks for my Scattered Stars quilt. Nope, not quite. I wound up making one more 18″ square block:

Here’s why. I’d been thinking over the last few days about how to piece the backing and knew that I wanted to incorporate these two 18″ blocks left over after making the front:

They didn’t make the final cut, not because I don’t like them — I love both of them! No, it’s because of the print I chose for the background: the scale is larger than the prints I used in the background of the other blocks. When I had all the blocks up on my design wall, moving them around and determining final placement, these blocks simply overpowered the ones around them. I had made 12 18″ blocks and only needed 10 so it was an easy decision to pull these two.

(If you look at my final layout, you’ll see there is only one other block with that same background fabric and it’s a 12″ block so it doesn’t overpower its neighbors. Look slightly more than halfway down, slightly to the left of center.)

So. . . I had the two 18″ blocks to play with. Two big blocks on the back of a quilt would probably look okay but I think groups of three are more attractive. That’s why I had to make one more block using the same larger scale background print to unify the three blocks. Then I had to decide how to arrange them on the back. Something simple, nothing fancy. Final decision: I’m going to stagger them. After matching 48 pairs of star points on the front this much was sure — no more matching star points!

Here’s my mockup of the back:

That little square on the lower left side is where the label will go. Maybe I’ll incorporate a small Sawtooth Star block into the label. We’ll see.

Now that I’ve decided what to do for the back, it shouldn’t take much time to sew it together. I’ve been distracted of late by domestic chores, both enjoyable (trying new recipes) and not so enjoyable (cleaning the oven) and by the ever-present lure of books.  But sewing and quilting are never far from my mind so I should have something to show you before too much longer. No sewing right now, though. It’s time to head into the kitchen to make Roast Chicken with Caramelized Shallots.

I think this is the final layout for my cheddar and indigo quilt:

I’ve been moving the little six-inch Sawtooth Star blocks around to get the best distribution of the stars with light and cheddar centers and am finally satisfied with the layout you see above. They’re surrounded by larger Sawtooth Stars with Churn Dash blocks in their centers, called “Churning Stars” after the design by Jenifer Gaston.

As you can see, the little Sawtooth Stars are grouped in twos and threes. In my layout I had one six-inch spot left over — and that’s where “that singleton block” appears. But it’s not a Sawtooth Star; it’s a Churn Dash. Do you spot it? Look in the lower right part of the photo.

Isn’t that a sweet little Churn Dash? It started out as a three-inch block . . .

. . . that now nestles inside a block that will finish at six inches:

I have my friend Colleen to thank for the creation of this block. Back in November when we were together at Quilt Camp I was making my first Churning Star blocks — the ones that finish at 12″ and 18″ inches square — with no plan as to what I would do with them. It was Colleen who suggested I add some six-inch blocks. That was a great suggestion because it turned out I would need a whole bunch of them.

Then Colleen said, “Why don’t you make a three-inch block?” So I did. Just one. It wasn’t until I had completed my layout of the quilt on graph paper that I saw a special place for that one wee Churn Dash block.

Standing back 10 feet from my design wall, I am really liking the way the blocks are offset due to the layout and their different sizes. And I am liking the way the Sawtooth Stars are scattered over the surface of the quilt.

Hmmm! Scattered Stars . . . that just might turn out to be the name of this quilt.

In my last progress report I talked about playing with the cheddar and indigo blocks on my design wall and realizing more blocks were needed. This quilt is going to contain blocks in three sizes — six, 12 and 18 inches — in an arrangement still to be determined. I made four more blocks of each size — and then I stopped. Why? I hadn’t yet decided what size my quilt would be — an important piece of information when figuring how many more blocks to make!

I finally settled on a twin sized quilt for a rather compelling reason:  I am ready to finish this project and move on to something else! After spending time moving blocks around on my design wall I realized how difficult it is to create a layout with different sized blocks. And it’s complicated by the fact that I’m combining various prints and trying to get them distributed evenly around the quilt.

I figured I’d better move to graph paper. Here’s the result, achieved with much erasing and with the bottom of the layout cut and pasted on:

The blocks with the big X are obviously the 18″ ones. The squares with the circle in the middle are the 12″ blocks and the squares with the small X are the 6″ blocks. The quilt will measure 66″ x 90″ (assuming I don’t put a border on it).

With paper layout in hand, I arranged the 18″ and 12″ blocks on my design wall . . . and kept moving them around until finally deciding on this distribution of blocks:

The white spaces you see are where the 6″ blocks will go, mostly in twos and threes but there is one space for a singleton block. I have something special in mind for that one.

I’m not very good at “going scrappy.” The quilt looks awfully busy to me — even before adding the 6″ blocks. But I love the block design and the fabrics  so I just have to trust I will be happy with the end result.

Perhaps I should have titled this post “Plodding Along: Cheddar and Indigo Quilt.” Even with all the extra sewing time available to me (thanks to the coronavirus pandemic), I don’t feel like I’m taking proper advantage of it. Part of the problem is that I seem to spend as much time petting my fabric as I do cutting and sewing it.

And I must confess to whiling away a big chunk of time last week just playing around with blocks on my design wall. Based on that pleasant exercise, I realized I need about twice as many blocks as I have. I decided to make a few more of the largest Churning Stars blocks — the 18″ Sawtooth Star blocks containing 9″ Churn Dash blocks in the center.

As I made each block, it instantly became my favorite. In this block the background dark navy print in the Churn Dash block and the background print in the Sawtooth Star are the same print in different colorways:

The same print in a third colorway makes the star points in the next block:

A very modern print from Victoria Findlay Wolfe’s “Futurum” line shows up in the Churn Dash block– but look how well it goes with the very traditional prints in the Sawtooth Star:

One more big block with indigo Sawtooth Star points is in the works. When it’s done I’ll have a dozen big blocks. Will that be enough? Time will tell . . .

My layout (the one in my head) calls for blocks of different sizes to be staggered. I expect there will be a lot of 6″ Sawtooth Star blocks used as filler so I’m gearing up to make a boatload of them. Here are three I made last week:

Look how cute they are from the back:

I have a new way of pressing the seams that makes them as flat as possible at the intersections. It does involve clipping to the seamline, which is something I used to avoid doing. But after making two large sampler quilts involving lots of angled seams, I have come to embrace the idea of clipping seams. The teeny tiny four-patches are an unexpected byproduct of the technique.

Maybe by the end of the week I’ll have some potential layouts to share with you. I hope you’ll stop by for a look!

. . . out of mind. Isn’t that the truth!

In February my design wall was starting to fill up with Churning Star blocks. (Churning Stars is the name designer Jenifer Gaston gave to a quilt with Churn Dash blocks centered in Sawtooth Star blocks.) I’m combining different size Churning Star blocks in cheddar and indigo fabrics for a quilt whose layout is still in my head. All I know so far is that it will be a bed-size quilt and blocks will vary in size.

I took the blocks down from the design wall to make room for a couple of smaller projects and the stack lay untouched in my sewing room. For four months. Part of the reason is that the coronavirus came to Oregon and I moved on to making face masks. I’m still making masks but this weekend I was inspired to dig out those cheddar and indigo fabrics, get my blocks back up on the design wall, and make some more Churning Stars.

Here are my latest blocks:

The two blocks at the top will finish at 12″ square and the one on the bottom will finish at 18″ square. The blocks are easy and fun to make. I do believe it’s taking me more time to decide which fabric combinations to use than it is to actually make the blocks!

Here are close-ups of the blocks:

Those two are the 12″ blocks. The one below is the 18″ block:

Not all of my blocks have fussy-cut centers but these three do. That’s part of the fun!

I’m going to concentrate on this project and see if I can wrap it up by the end of the month. And this time I’m going to keep the blocks on my design wall until I’m ready to sew them together.

The best way to describe progress on my Churning Stars quilt is “intermittent.” I’ve not spent much time in my sewing room recently. Over the weekend, though, I did find the time to make a few more big blocks — the ones that will finish at 18″ square. Take a look:

Last month I discovered that a seller on Etsy had a Layer Cake of “Cheddar and Indigo,” the fabric line from Penny Rose Studio that launched this project. Even though it was not a bargain, I snapped it up because a) fabric from this line that came out in 2015 is virtually impossible to find now, and 2) I really wanted more of these background fabrics:

If I’m very careful in cutting up these 10″ squares, I’ll be able to maximize the number of blocks that contain the fabrics as background.

Curiously, I was able to find a lot of almost every cheddar and indigo print from the line — I started looking three years ago — but only two of the six light background prints, the ones you see on the left:

I’m especially fond of the smaller of the two background prints. Good thing, as I have plenty of it. And I have enough of the other prints to make at least one more cheddar and indigo quilt. Even though I’ve practically just begun working on this one, I’m already auditioning patterns for a second one.

Is this normal behavior (for a quilter) or am I obsessing?

I made a new Churn Dash block the other day for the quilt I’m currently working on using fabrics from the line called “Cheddar and Indigo” by Penny Rose Studio. Because these fabrics have been out for five years, I don’t have a full set of the line and am lacking light prints for the background. I’ve filled in with cream tone-on-tone prints from my stash.

Imagine my delight when I stopped by an LQS (that’s Local Quilt Shop for you non-quilters) the other day and happened upon two fat quarters of a light print from a different Cheddar and Indigo line, this one by Nancy Gere for Windham Fabrics. A perfect addition, I thought. After making my block I thought it looked just fine . . .

. . . until I put it up on my design wall in the company of some other blocks:

I had thought the new background fabric was creamy but it looked positively snowy white against the other blocks. What to do? I wondered if I could tea-dye the fabric. I’d never done it before but how hard could it be? After a bit of research on the Internet, I approached my task.

First, I found the widest shallowest bowl in my kitchen, one that was big enough for the block to lie almost flat on the bottom:

After removing the block, I plopped one tea bag in the bowl and filled it halfway with boiling water. I let the teabag steep for 90 seconds, then fished it out of the bowl when the water was a nice light brown. In went the block for a timed tea bath of three and a half minutes:

I could have let it steep longer but I wanted just a bit of color. I figured I could always dip the block a second time if it wasn’t dark enough.

After removing it from the bowl I plunged it into a bowl of cold water to which I had added a couple tablespoons of white vinegar (a tip from the Internet, intended to set the dye so it wouldn’t wash out when laundered). When the block was dry I gave it a good pressing . . .

and put it back up on the design wall:

Can you see the difference? It’s very subtle but unmistakably a better match with the other backgrounds.

Here’s a look at the block before and after:

Mission accomplished! Now I just have to tea-dye what’s left of the two fat quarters so I can make some more blocks.

. . . I could make Churn Dash blocks till the cows come home.

The Churn Dash really is one of my very favorite traditional blocks. It’s right up there with stars of any kind — note the Sawtooth Stars above. Last year I spotted a quilt called Churning Stars in a book by Jenifer Gaston (Primitive Style) with this combo of Churn Dash blocks inside Sawtooth Star blocks and was instantly hooked.

I made a couple of test blocks back then, dipping into my collection of cheddar and indigo fabrics from Penny Rose Studio. Then nothing until Quilt Camp in November, when I made a few more blocks. Since then I’ve picked up a few fabrics from other lines to add to the mix.

I stole a few moments last week to make a handful of blocks, all destined to be part of a bed-size quilt. I’m not working with a pattern. I’m just making blocks in different sizes, ranging from the 3″ blocks you see in the upper right corner to the 18″ block in the lower left corner. I’ll play around with them on my design wall when I have enough to make a quilt.

This is my idea of fun! What’s yours?