Get ready for a lot of pictures! I will apologize in advance, but I just had so much fun making this quilt and I couldn’t decide which photos to keep.

So, as I mentioned in my “quilt top” post for this one, I made this little quilt as a class example for next week’s Sewing Summit in Salt Lake City. Kati and I are going to be teaching Shapes and Angles and will be going over partial seams, y-seams (via hexagons), equilateral triangles and diamonds.

I designed this quilt using 3 types of star blocks that all incorporate partial seams, and then little wonky stars to fill in the spaces. The pieced blocks range in size from 6″ to 18″. The 12″ star is the Another Star block from my Solstice Stars Series. Except instead of making it the “cheating way” that I show in the tutorial (minus the partial seams), I do it the “correct way” (with the partial seams).

I decided to use about 5 shades of tan, just from my stash, for the backgrounds. A few months ago I was itching to add some neutrals to my stash to have on hand for projects like this. I pulled out my solid color cards and just ordered 1/2 yard to 1 yard of a bunch of Free Spirit, Kona and Bella neutrals. I asked the shops to label them for me because I knew once they arrived it would be a bit tricky to figure out exactly what they were.

The prints in this quilt are almost all by Denyse Schmidt – specifically her Chicopee line…I think I’ve mentioned how much I love it, yes? I hope you aren’t sick of seeing me use it yet, I’m sure I’m not done!

I mixed in some of Denyse’s fabric that she sells at JoAnns and also a print from Anna Maria Horner’s old Good Folks line because I wanted some more greens in there. I’m officially out of the one print I used, kind of makes me sad but I’m happy I was able to use it in a project that I love.

This quilt is 36″ x 48″. I didn’t want to make it huge because I really don’t want to check a bag going to SLC. I am thinking of making this into a pattern and if I do that, it will likely be larger.

I struggle with writing patterns with scrappy piecing because it gets confusing when figuring out fabric requirements. When you make a pattern, are you ok with seeing fabric requirements that say “xyz yards total in a mix of prints” rather than having each amount of scrap prints spelled out? I’m going to think on it for awhile.

I quilted this with straight lines, about 1/2″ apart. The backing is another one of Denyse Schmidt’s prints from JoAnns.

Those going to the Sewing Summit, I can’t wait to see you all next week! I hope if you see me you will come up and introduce yourself. Trust me, I know how it can be scary to meet new people. Believe it or not I can be pretty shy (except for teaching for some reason). For those staying home this time, I will try to take a lot of photos to share when I get back. I still have one more quilt I’m hoping to finish for another class example – fingers crossed!

As promised, today I’m sharing the finished Candy Pinwheel quilt, made from my Candy Pinwheel block of the Festival of Half Square Triangles. (To see more on the block and quilt assembly, check out my Candy Pinwheel tutorial.) A few of you asked how I was planning on starting and ending my rows. As you can see, I decided to use a solid turquoise fabric. I really love this color, it’s probably one of my current favorites – FreeSpirit Designer Solid in Light Jade.

For the corners, I left off one half square triangle to give this angled look. I thought that was pretty cool…my daughter (the recipient of the quilt) almost starting crying because “my quilt is missing the corners!” Well, I still like it.

As I mentioned on Wednesday, I decided to make the Candy Pinwheel blocks either all warm or all cool colors. Mostly…there are always exceptions to the rule and I do have a few that used a warm/cool combination.

I quilted this with straight lines, 1/4″ down each side of the diagonal seams. I was actually a bit nervous to quilt this, because my daughter wanted minky on the back. I followed many people’s advice to just use a lot of pins and my walking foot (which I already use anyway) and really, the quilting proved to be a non-event. No issues whatsoever. And the end result gives a nice, poofy look to the quilted squares.

The quilt measures 39-1/2″ x 47″. It is bright, happy, super cuddly, and already much loved. And on a very random side note, does anyone know what kind of daffodils these beautiful flowers are?

We are in the second to last month of the Twice Around the Block Virtual Quilting Bee, and this month Sarah asked us to make star blocks. She sent fabric from an out of print Anna Maria Horner collection called Bohemian. I decided to use the same layout I used this summer in my Wonky Little Star Quilt, only this time I made Friendship Stars. I’ve heard this layout now referred to as “interlocking stars” and I think that’s a great description. I’ve really enjoyed seeing them pop up all over.

I had a lot of questions after that quilt regarding how to layout the fabric squares to achieve the look. I created a little diagram…

It’s the same layout as a Plus Quilt, where you start with the blocks in the middle and work your way out to the edges.

Next month is my turn to send out fabrics for the bee, so I am hoping to come up with a final plan over the next two days. If only there were more hours in the day!

Now that the weather is turning cooler here in Chicago, I have been motivated to make a few new things to keep me warm. Last year, Anna Maria Horner posted a tutorial for a Figure 8 scarf. I decided to go ahead and buy one of her kits and make one for myself. The reason I bought the kit was that you need 18″ x 72″ of two types of fabric. So, unless you want to make 2 of the same scarf (which isn’t a bad idea for gift giving), you will have left over fabric if you don’t buy a kit.

I had never sewn with velveteen before – it’s quite beautiful and I think it would make a fabulous winter skirt. Because I was sewing voile to the velveteen, I took Jeni’s advice and used lots of pins and my walking foot. This worked perfectly and I didn’t have any shifting or stretching as I worked.

So, after I finished and tried it on I decided I probably would prefer this scarf to be a bit less bulky for my body frame. (Although I haven’t altered it yet and I am still wearing it). I think if I had it to do again, I might try 13″ x 72″ for each side.

I wanted to make another scarf with some Nani Iro double gauze as well. But that fabric is kind of pricey and I didn’t want to buy a lot of extra to get the 18″ x 72″ for each side, so I followed Jeni’s alterations to make a thinner, longer scarf, that would be wrapped 3 times around my next. Her method only uses 2 half yards of fabric so is a bit more affordable if you don’t have a kit to buy.

Here is a side by side comparison of the finished scarves. You can see the first one I made is much wider, a bit shorter. The longer one is thinner and also more lightweight due to using double gauze fabric on both sides. I will say that I do feel a bit like I’m going to accidentally strangle myself when I’m wrapping that one three times around my neck. But as you can see, it is just as full as the following the original pattern.

Both of these scarves cost about $25 to make and I think something handmade like this would make great Christmas gifts. My favorite fabrics overall were voile and double gauze. I may now make some lightweight scarves like I found on Flickr here, here and here.