World in Stitches

These are the quilts demo’d at the Q8Quilters Hands-On meeting today:

Sloppy Stars

January 2008

 

 

 

 

These stars ARE sloppy, and the original design, in which the star blocks were something like 9 x 14 were conceived by Evelyn Sloppy. I wanted a more square star, so I re-drafted it  and . . . it worked!

 

Although your pattern will be cut 16.25 inches (DO NOT FORGET TO ADD .25 INCH TO THE OUTSIDE BORDER OR YOU WILL LOSE STAR TIPS!) your finished block will measure approximately 13”. 

 

 

 

Make yourself a master copy, a copy you swear you will never cut. When you want to make this quilt, make copies on freezer paper from your master copy.

 

If you want alternating backgrounds (some stars light on dark, some stars dark on light) then you will need:

 

13 light fat quarters

12 dark fat quarters.

 

1.  Starch, iron and stack all the lights together, and starch, iron and stack all the darks together.

 

2.  Make two copies of the master chart on freezer paper. Iron one on to the top of the lights stack, and iron one onto the top fat quarter from the dark stack. Be sure to iron the freezer paper onto one side of the fat quarters so there will be plenty of leftover fabric for fixing up blocks, if you need it.

 

3. Put a fresh blade in your rotary cutter.

 

4.  Holding your piles steady, make cuts in the order shown. 

 

5.  When both piles are cut, first on the light stack, we do the background pieces first: 

start with A1 - take the top piece and put it on the bottom of the A1 pile. 

Go to B1, take the top two pieces and put them at the bottom of the pile of B1’s.  

B3, take the top three pieces. 

D1, take the top four pieces. 

A3 - do nothing! Now do the same process on the dark stack.

 

Now do the same with the star pieces in each pile:

 

C1 - take the top piece and put it on the bottom

B2- take the top 2 pieces

D2 - take the top 3 pieces

C3 - take the top 4 pieces

A2 - take the top five pieces

C2 - do nothing

 

Now take all the light background pieces and switch them to the dark star stack. Take the dark background pieces and switch them to the light star stack.

 

6.  Piecing

 

Leave everything stacked.

 

Do not string piece;  the stars get confused. I suggest you stitch all the pieces to each star at the same time. It takes a little longer, but it is worth it.

 

Stitch A3 to A2, and then stitch A1 to A2.

Stitch B2 to B3, then stitch B1 to B2.

Stitch C1 to C2, then stitch C3 to C2

Stitch D1 to D2.

Stitch the D Sections to the C section (trim the edges which will join so that they are even)

 

Your pieces will not have lined up exactly. With each star, trim the inner joining lines. Don’t worry about the outside, we will trim these blocks up when the blocks are finished.

 

As you stitch the sections together, the intersections will not be where they were on the pattern. Don’t worry. They don’t have to. Your stars will all work out. These are SLOPPY stars.

 

Stitch the A section to the CD section. 

Stitch the ACD section to the B section.

 

I will tell you honestly at this point, my stars looked AWFUL - lots of wobbles because of the bias edges. 

 

Press your stars, use a little starch, and then measure the smallest star. Trim your blocks to that size. Alternatively, if your smallest star is too small, you can use some of that leftover fabric to put a small border where you need it. Honestly, we do this all the time.

 

Arrange the blocks, 5 x 5, and sew them together. Put on a border, if you wish. The quilt, without a border, will be about 55 inches  - but this is not a precise technique, and your results may be slightly different.

 

Quilting will take care of the wobbles.

 

ALTERNATE:

 

I did two quilts at the same time, because I wanted an all dark background and an all light background.

 

You need:

 

25 dark fat quarters

25 light fat quarters

 

When all your blocks are completed, use all the ones with dark background for one quilt and all the ones with light background for the second quilt. Keep one and give the other as a gift!

 

I did these in Christmas colors, but I have also seen them done in blues and whites, reds and whites, and once, fantastically, in rainbow colors.

One of the keys to quilt production is organization. Once you’ve got Christmas all put away, it’s time to look at the quilting room.   

I have a secret vice. I LOVE rotary cutting. I love it so much that sometimes my quilting friends will ask me to cut things out for them and they will stitch things up for me, or do some other craft related favor. It all works out in the long run ;-).   

So you can imagine - I love January. January is when I grab those boxes and baskets of scraps I have tossed. I put an iron and ironing board in my sewing room and starch (good old Sta-Flo) up all those scraps and iron them, then cut them up. I cut 2 1/2 inch strips first. I cut blocks in 7″, 6.5″, 6″, 5.5″ (etc) . . . . and store them in piles with a lable on top. Just as I love those 2.5″ strips, I love the 2.5″ squares, and have shoeboxes of them, all sorted by color.     

(Remember those map quilts we looked at earlier? When you need a zillion different desert colors, or greens, or blues for the sea, you already have a goodly stash cut up if you do your January homework.)    

You can also do that   Sweetheart Quilt, either in reds or in a variety of scrappy colors. I think I remember that it takes about 49 squares per block - that uses up a LOT of scraps, and it is a fun quilt and a quick quilt to make, again, a great group activity.  

It also makes sense to cut up all those squares with a bunch of friends because you can exchange and have lots and lots of different scrap colors in your quilt. Some years, I have gotten together with friends and we’ve all cut-up together, and that is really a lot of fun. It has to be the right friends, though, who can balance FUN with a sense of mission - I am a little obsessive (a LITTLE???) about getting my January cutting done. The best year was when we brought food, and just kept cutting and cutting until we were all ready to drop.    

And here is the really cool thing. As you cut, you come across fabrics you had totally forgotten, and those old creative juices start flowing. As you cut, two or three or four quilts will start forming in your mind, so keep you little gridded notebook handy, and write down those ideas before they slip away!   

Once you have all those scraps cut, labeled, sorted and put away, take a couple hours to get your workroom back in order. If you are anything like me, the creation process is messy. I pull out all kinds of fabrics, looking for just the right combination, and you know, while you are on a roll is NOT the time to be obsessive about putting things away. . . you just cut and sew and audition and back to the drawing board - it’s a burning-the-midnight-oil kind of energy, and you don’t want to dilute it with dutiful energy, just go go GO!   

So from time to time, you have to pay the piper. This is a good time - now that you’ve so virtuously cut up all your scraps - a great time to sort all those fabrics and put them back neatly on the shelves. Again - you will see old friends you have totally forgotten, and they will call out to you, and new ideas will pop into your head. But this isn’t the time to dilute that virtuous, dutiful energy with creative energy; quickly jot down the ideas but KEEP GOING, straighten, organize, file by color and pattern, get it all put away.   

Once you have your work room all neat again you don’t need me to tell you what to do next. You will be on fire to get started. Don’t ya just love that January energy? New year, new quilts?