Christmas Star Quilt

One of my happy moments this last couple of weeks was putting our new Christmas Star Quilt on the bed.

I used to have another Christmas quilt, made of a lot of earthy, rich Alexandar Henry fabrics, but when we painted our bedroom blue, I wanted something lighter.  I also wanted something with a lot of pieces, which caused me to lose my mind this summer as I put it together.

But I really like how it looks–all these red-pointed stars in a field of blues.  Yes, I know I need to make the shams, but that will have to wait until next year.  I’m in the Grading Galaxy and not coming out for a week or two.

I’m also happy to report that there is not one star that is like another, thanks to the great fabric designers of this line: Wintergraphix II.  (Here’s a link to AbbiMays Online Quilt Shop, where I bought most of it–looks like they’re already on to Wintergraphix III.)  I really enjoyed working on it.  I wasn’t very inventive on the back–just large squares of the extra fabrics.  Quilting was by DJ Designs–Cathy Kreter did a great job.

Merry Christmas!

Christmas Star Quilt Binding is On

Finished!

Every six months our church has a conference they broadcast over the internet, and I take time to sit and ponder and listen, but I’m better off if I keep my hands busy while I work.  This year, I worked on two quilts.  Getting the binding sewn on the Christmas Star quilt was a priority, for we’re in October now and we all know what that means: December is tomorrow (or feels like it).

I had read Red Pepper’s blog about the way she does her corners–up and around in one continuous piece.  I’d never been really happy with this method as so many quilt corners done like this are slightly rounded, not a pristine sharp-edge tip.  So I decided to try giving the corner a scootch more room.  The instructions, shown in the crazy mom quilts tutorial, fold back the corner.  I decided to fold it back four or five threads more, as shown above by the teensy lip near the pin, then continued my stitching down the edge.

I was really happy with this.  It gave it just enough room to make a nice tight, sharp corner, rather than the usual rounded one that can happen with this method.

This is the back of the corner, and if you look closely, you can see my stitches going up the back of the miter to anchor the corner.  I still hand sew around the binding, but the way the old fingers are creaking with aches and pains from arthritis, maybe I’d either better stop grading so much, or learn to sew it on by machine!

Anyway, I still have to do the label, but I consider this done enough to throw it on the bed come December 1st.  I just hope that at that point, our heat wave will be long gone.

Quilts Back from Cathy

Always a good day when I can pick up my quilts from Cathy, my quilter.  She did a great job. Now on to the bindings!

Piecing Equals Writing?

I’ve been working on this quilt for too long.  I’m really tired of it, but I can’t stop now as I spent a gank of money on the fabric and don’t want to just put it up on the shelf.  Besides I know I’ll like it when it’s done.  I hope.

When I was in grad school and slogging through the writing of my novel, it feel like sometimes I was being tortured, one paragraph at a time.  There’s days when even though you are sure you’re writing The Great American Novel, it’s all just too much.  I wanted short stories! Poems! Essays!  Anything that had a page count of less than twenty pages.

And now?  I want to make a baby quilt! A lap quilt! Anything with a block count of less than twenty blocks.