Pages

Monday, September 26, 2011

Back to Being Straight Up Type B

Giant Star Quilt center

Recently, I have been doing a mixture of quilting from patterns and branching out into the pattern-free unknown. One of my problems, though (one of many) is that even when I use a pattern, I have to mess with it by making the blocks bigger or smaller, omitting a border or adding a border, etc.

It's like I am incapable of following directions (I don't lead with this in job interviews!). This is also the reason that I forget to add vanilla in a lot of recipes... Anyway, Jeni over at the fantastic In Color Order, posted a tutorial for a Giant Vintage Star Quilt last month. Pretty straight forward, super cute quilt. I think you get a lot of bang for your buck, meaning - it comes together very quickly and easily and I think it has a nice WOW factor despite having only 28 pieces. (I know - 28 pieces for an entire quilt! So great, right?!)

Giant Star Quilt

Anyhoo, I decided to outline the Prince Charming star with Kona Candy Green. Due to my ineptitude and lack of innate geometric instinct, I created an 8 point star with all the points cut off. I believe - math whizzes correct me if I'm wrong - that the points would not have turned out right because of the right angles in the corner [square] blocks. They do not come together at an angle that would leave background fabric exposed for the seam allowance (i.e., the right angle formed by the point in Flying Geese blocks).

Giant Star detail 1     Giant Star detail 2

And so, here I am, once again, scratching me head over an idea gone awry. It's probably because I've been saying that my sewing has improved and the quilting deities are saying - 'not really, hon.' :) But, it actually doesn't bother me too much. I'm going to bind it in Candy Green, so the binding will look like an extension of the stars. Maybe I'll call it the "Pointless Wonder"!

I also toyed with turning the two halves of the star outwards, so that the points meet in the middle. Kinda funky.


Giant Star Quilt 2

I'll definitely do more versions. This might be my go-to quilt for a fast gift project (minus the outlining!). Definitely give this quilt a try if you're in need of a quick quilt. Wouldn't it be fun in holiday colors - kinda snowflake-ish.

But don't be like me and try to outline it - it doesn't quite work out :)

1 comment:

Jane said...

Love the outlining. Who needs points anyway!