Jenny's 3D "North Star" Quilt - Fabulous!

Pauline, my quilting guru, is an avid follower of "Jenny" from Missouri Star Quilt Company.  Today she told me about a tutorial that Jenny did last Wednesday.

Jenny's latest is a quilt design she calls "North Star" - and oh, my... it's fascinating.  If you do a Google search for "North Star Quilt", you'll find quite a few different designs under that name - but unless Jenny's tutorial comes up in the search results, you won't see her version.  Her's is a very distinctive quilt with a 3D effect.

I don't have a photo of my own I can share (yet), but the link below will take you to Jenny's tutorial on YouTube.

See Jenny's "North Star" Tutorial.

And am I going to make one of these?  You betcha, baby!

(BTW - The tutorial was added on May 31, 2018.  As of this moment - June 3 - there have been  58,573 views! Yup.  Jenny's worth her weight in gold, that's for sure!)

Quilt 105: Half-Square Triangles - Moda "Quilt Pink" - DONE!

It came together SO FAST!  And I love the bright cheery colours.  The charm squares were purchased for this quilt.  The rest of the fabric in the top is leftovers from other quilts.

52" x 64" - quilted on the longarm (free-motion loop-d-loops) - cotton batting

The backing fabric is a soft pink print (little flowers in 2 shades - very subtle).  I got it at the big sale I told you about a couple of weeks back.

I'm working on using up my cotton batting, and am switching now to bamboo batting.  The bamboo costs just a little bit more, but it produces so much less lint when I'm quilting that it's worth the extra money.

Quilt 105: Half-Square Triangles - Moda "Quilt Pink"

After watching some Missouri Quilts YouTube videos (starring the fabulous Jenny), I decided to grab a pack of charm squares and try my hand at half-square triangle blocks.  I used Moda's "Quilt pink" pack - and got 2 packs of this set, because the "pinwheel" blocks I want will need 2 charm squares (and this set from Moda doesn't have any repeating prints - every print in the pack is different).

And I cut out an equal number of white 5" squares from some leftover fabric I had.  Then I placed one of the prints and one solid white square together (right sides in) and drew diagonal line from one corner  to the other.  I stitched 1/4" out on either side of the pencil line.

Then cut along the line...

Flipped them open, pressed, and then assembled pinwheels:

And here's the finished block.

I've got a bright green solid fabric (leftovers from another quilt), and will frame my blocks in a 2" lattice.  I'll have that to show you next week!

Bless Me, Father, For I Have Sinned

I thought about giving this post the title of "It's Not What You Spent, It's What You Saved" - but I know I've used that before, although some years ago.

I knew about the sale at "Patchwork With Gail B" (my fav. quilting shop).  I wasn't going to go.  But On the first day of the sale, I had a dentist appointment - and it was just down the road so...

...so...

I went.  To make matters worse, I contacted Pauline, my quilting guru and she didn't exactly say "...lead me not into temptation".  No.  Pauline was all too happy to join me in a fabric frenzy.  And yes, readers, that is exactly what happened.

Here's my loot:

I broke a new record for yardage bought on a single shopping trip.  It's actually enough that I couldn't carry it all - had to make 2 trips to/from the car to get it into the house.

Now I'll partially redeem myself by saying that when I buy fabric for a new quilt, I almost never buy the backing at the same time.  So I've got several projects in the pipeline which will need backing, and I was going to have to make a special trip to get it.  But here I was - with Gail's unimaginably inexpensive 4-meters-for-$20 - AND quite a few of the packs she had are just about perfect backing for top fabric I already have.  So yes... indeed... I did save a lot.

And what can I say? Well... the American comic "Flip" Wilson would know:

Me: I'm not buying anything
Devil: Look at those 4-meter packs!   What a deal!
Me: No, I'm not buying anything.  Oh - wait!   I have a top ready to sandwich and this pack is perfect!
Devil:  See?  Would I lie to ya, baby?
Me: Right.  2 packs of backing and here's a kit marked down super low.  I made one of these a long time ago.  It was fun doing it and the results are stunning.  This would be lovely for one of the "Inspirational Quilts" kids.
Devil: Charity begins at home.
Me: Well, I'll get some thread while I'm here.
Devil: (just smiles and grins)
Me: Ah yes - a spool of this and a spool of that.
Devil: get 2 each.  That way you can use one for the machine head, one for the bobbin!
Me: There's some sense in that.
Devil: Oh look!  Charm Squares!
Me: Oh look!  Charm Squares!

(you get the idea:  The Devil Made Me Do It)