First Light Designs

How about a few more photos of the quilting on Scattered Stars, my cheddar and indigo quilt? I’ve been feasting my eyes on it since bringing it home from the quilter on Wednesday. It’s only fair to share it with you, right?

Let’s start with the tiniest block in the quilt, this 3″ Churn Dash nestled inside a 6″ block:

The photo shows off the beautiful quilting by Karlee Sandell of SewInspired2Day. At first glance you might think the quilting motif is Baptist Fan but it’s actually a more contemporary design called Woven Wind.

Here’s a look at the entire front of the quilt . . .

. . . and an angled look across the front:

Most of the fabrics are from the “Cheddar and Indigo” line by Penny Rose that came out in 2015. The prints are very traditional but I had fun mixing in some contemporary prints, including this cheddar print — it’s a map of Barcelona! — from the line of the same name by Zen Chic for Moda . . .

. . . and this cheddar print by Victoria Findlay Wolfe from her “Futurum” line for Marcus Fabrics:

That navy print in the Churn Dash block above is a vintage fabric that’s so old there’s no information on the selvage. I can’t even remember where I found it.

Here’s a look at the back of Scattered Stars:

It’s nearly impossible to see the quilting in that photo so here are a couple of close-ups:

You can really see the Woven Wind quilting motif in the large indigo print above right. And in the next photo, notice how the quilted curves in the center of the block serve to soften those sharp angles and straight lines:

I think you can tell I really love how this quilt is turning out! I trimmed it today and plan to attach the binding tomorrow. The forecast for Portland the next couple of days is sunny with temperatures in the high 90s. I can’t imagine sitting for hours with a quilt in my lap so I may have to wait till cooler weather arrives to tack the binding down on the back.

In the meantime I can work on the label. I should have a finished quilt to show you by the end of the month.

Scattered Stars is quilted!

Mere hours after dropping off the top and backing to longarm quilter Karlee Sandell of SewInspired2Day yesterday, she had them loaded on to her longarm machine and quilted. Karlee posted photos on her Instagram feed last night and kindly gave me permission to post them here.

Take a look at this:

Isn’t the quilting marvelous? In my last post I hinted that the motif I had chosen was a contemporary version of a very traditional one. It reminds me of the time-honored Baptist Fan motif — but with an edge. The design is called Woven Wind, and I chose it not only because of its similarity to Baptist Fan but also because I felt all those sharp points in my blocks needed some curves to soften them a bit.

And there’s one more reason: my quilt is a quirky combination of traditional and contemporary elements. I started with two very traditional quilt blocks — the Churn Dash and the Sawtooth Star — combined into one block (the Churning Stars block) but then created a quilt of different sizes of blocks with no border. I used a group of very traditional indigo and cheddar fabrics but also threw in some contemporary cheddar and indigo-colored prints. The traditional-but-contemporary quilting motif reinforces my other design choices in making the quilt.

Here are a couple of close-ups of Karlee’s quilting:

The quilting looks terrific on the back too:

I’m off to fetch my quilt so I can see this quilting loveliness in person. More photos to come!

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.