Star quilt

Before Tule and Koi arrived, I had definite plans to make a quilt from them, being my most anticipated collections for a while. It was a happy coincidence that they go together so well, saving me the work of making 2 quilts and improving the likelihood of me actually finishing it.

I've had this lovely machine pieced star quilt bookmarked for a while, I love all things geometrical and the idea of machine rather than hand piecing was very appealing.

I chose my favourite prints from the collections, adding a bit of colour with the yellow and pink. The temptation was to add a bit of this and a bit of that, but I was firm and didn't diverge from Tule and Koi.

I had planned to do it on a white background (not sure why with hindsight as it looked dreadful) and nearly chose a turquoise one (too bold for my moderate tastes). In the end I chose Kona Dimensions grey, as you know, I loves grey, and it provided enough contrast to the diamonds whilst being suitable boring neutral enough for my tastes. I love Kona dimensions as they have a really good weight and the honeycomb design has a lovely subtle texture that shines on closer inspection.

I drew the pattern pieces out on paper and cut out a bunch of diamonds and triangles. This was helped by changing my rotary cutter blade for the first time in years (why on earth did I wait so long?!) and this ruler which really helped with the triangles.

Sewed them together only to realise I had miscalculated my sizes and found some pieces 5mm out, I spent a couple of tired and emotional hours trying to figure it out and in the end, I think by fluke I got the sizes right. It was testing, very testing.

But once I was off these are pretty quick to put together - especially since I have been chain piecing for the first time. And it's very satisfying slotting each block together, although I can see myself spending quite some time making the colour arrangement suitably 'random'.

I love it so far though and am determined to finish it quickly (well relatively) summer is gone and I need 2 quilts to keep me warm.

Happy weekend,

x