Hunter Star variation

Last summer, my friend Colleen and I decided to take the Hunter Star class at Along Came Quilting.

Here's a photo of the class sample, made by Kim Morrison, from the Along Came Quilting website, .

This is a gorgeous quilt, in a traditional Hunter Star layout.  This is a 4 day class (over 3 or 4 months), with lots of homework.  On the 2nd day of class, you play with layout designs, as there are many options.  Believe it or not, you can spend a whole day twisting and playing with block arrangement.  Kim, our instructor, warned us in advance not to be too set on the traditional layout, as the fabrics and blocks might tell you how they need to be.

Colleen was sure her quilt would be a traditional Hunter Star, as laid out below.

 And here's another layout option, with the same blocks. 

But Kim was right.  Colleen's blocks did not want to be traditional.

And here's how she chose to set her blocks...

This layout required more light blocks than dark blocks.  Colleen was starting to really like her quilt now, but wanted it slightly larger, and didn't care for the unfinished light stars on the edges, so very cleverly decided to add 1/2 blocks all around the outside edges, which finished the stars and made the quilt the size she wanted.    And, for consistency, and to make it more border-like, she used the same dark blue fabric in all of these blocks.

Isn't it wonderful with those 1/2 blocks added and the stars finished?  Colleen IS brilliant :)

I took a huge number of photos, but not one of the whole quilt after those 1/2 blocks were added.

The fun continued with the quilting.  Silk batting gives a nice loft without adding a lot of weight to this 88x102 quilt.  Whimsical freehand feathers in the border, feathers between stars and some line-dancing in the block centers, giving lots of motion to the quilt.  The stars were stitched around (ditched) to define them, and some continuous curves through the stars for softness.

I had been getting a little discouraged quilting the light areas, as it was very hard to see what I had done, and it seemed like it wouldn't be worth all the time...but then I came back downstairs and the light was just right!!  Hooray, the quilting really does show!

 These photos are while the work was still in progress, so the dark stars aren't stitched in yet.

And, Colleen really wanted pillow shams, but didn't want to piece any more blocks (plus I think she was out of usable fabric for light stars) so she gave me some of her border fabric, and I designed some quilted pillow shams.

oops, forgot to remove the chalk lines before taking photos

 The quilting is hard to see from the front, but when the light hits right, it's visible.

If you're still here, thanks for enduring through all these photos with me.

Tea Time in Bali #1

This is a quilt pattern that we will see a few of, so I will number them.  The pattern is a free Hoffman pattern called Tea Time in Bali.

We held a quilting day at the church last month, and most of the ladies bought a jelly roll/bali pop or a set of 2 1/2" strips they had cut from their own stash, and we had a lot of fun putting these quilts together.

This is Sue's. I was impressed with how flat and square it was for a new quilter.   Lovely color selections for her borders, and nice to see it in non-batiks as well.  Sue actually made this up in advance of the class as a class sample, as the ones that Colleen and I had made before had been given away.  Thanks for letting us use your quilt Sue.  Sue was unable to join us for our quilting day, but she brought us a yummy dessert to share!

 We used wool batting, which  gives lovely definition to the quilting.

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Cheryl's Half-Square Triangles

Cheryl has been working on these half-square triangle units for a long time.  She brought me this quilt as it was larger than she wanted to quilt herself. 

We decided on the baptist fan pantograph, as the quilt has quite a traditional feel to it. This quilt was lovely to work with, flat and square, which is hard to achieve with 1) all HST (half-square triangle) units and 2) pieced border.

 The baptist fan added some lovely curved texture to all those triangles.

 I forget if Cheryl said this was a kit or just a pattern she had bought, but she had enough HST units left over to make 3 small lap quilts!!

And these musical angels grace the back of the quilt.

Deborah's Hopscotch

This is Deborah's second quilt.  The first quilt she quilted herself, and for her second quilt, her friend/quilting mentor recommended getting it longarm quilted, so she could experience both.

This quilt was square and flat, which isn't always an easy feat with pieced borders.  Very well done for a beginner.

Deborah chose the Square Spiral pantograph, and a turquoise thread.  I was pleased to have a chance to stitch out a new pantograph.  I've seen and liked this pantograph on other quilters photos, so it was nice to know I love it in person too :)

 These fabrics are just so bright and cheery.  This quilt makes me smile.

Yellow Brick Road

 I can see that I took these photos while the camera was still MIA, so these are less than ideal phone photos.  Yellow Brick Road for the church ministry.  Freehand quilting.  These photos do no justice to the colors in this quilt.

Pentecost

 Edited to add more photos :)

Terri was inspired by the sermon at Symons Valley United Church at Pentecost last year.

A little background...Pentecost occurs 50 days after Easter, and is when the Holy Spirit came upon the 11 disciples and others with them, 10 days after the Ascension of Christ.  It is when the Christian church is said to have been started, and is often symbolized with fire and doves.  Red is the color of the day.

So, Terri was inspired and created this quilt, which she then let me play with.

Correct my math if I'm wrong Terri--there are 5,525 3/4" squares in this quilt.  Terri had a lot of fun designing with her graph paper, that's for sure.

I added a Dove, flames and got to play with Metallic thread too!

Looking forward to seeing this hung in church this morning.

Hmm...I 'll take my camera today and try and get some better photos.

Katelynd's Disappearing 9-patch

This disappearing 9-patch is laid out the same way as this  square dance, but Katelynd started with much larger squares.  Hmm... I forget exactly,  maybe she started with 5" squares?   Square Dance uses 2 1/2" strips.  The disadvantage to being behind on my blogging is I've forgotten some of the details.  Nice to see the same quilt in a different scale anyhow.

 A nice plush backing.  It shows these freehand wonky hearts very nicely.

 The color is washed out in these two photos...you can see on the top right corner of the very first photo that it's really a nice green.