This quilt has been a long time in the planning. I knew I wanted to use these fabrics together for a quilt for a good friend's second baby but changed my mind so many times about what pattern to use. So I decided to go with one of my favourite quilt blocks - either the Bearpaw or the Sawtooth Star. I had seen an outlined star block (I'm sure there's a better way of describing this but I can't think what that would be right now) on Instagram and thought this would be a great way to use these two fabrics together.
It wasn't meant to be a winter quilt, as the baby it is for was born in the summer, but last year, and this year, it's taking me longer to get big projects going than usual. I love how the colours look against the slight dusting of snow. My son was so excited by the snow he didn't even object to holding the quilt for me! We did get more snow the next week, even enough to do some sledging, which hasn't happened here in years. it was a nice break in the routine of lockdown!
I used Diary of a Quilter's Sawtooth Star tutorial as a reminder for the construction but of course, remembered to make the centre of each star the same fabric as the sashing. I am afraid I can't even remember what size I made the stars (edit: the stars are 12" blocks) or what width I used for the sashing. Usually I write it all down but I forgot with this one, I just made big stars then used sashing in between to get the quilt the size I wanted. The grid quilting works well I think as I wanted to keep the quilting design to a minimum so I didn't cover up the lovely softness of the fabrics too much. I wish I'd taken more photos of the quilt as I'm so happy with how it turned out. The aim was for it to look calm and I think the combination of the colours and the hollow stars achieved that.
So, on to the fabrics I used. The blue is a Cirrus Solid, 'rain' I think, from M is for Make. The Cirrus solids are more expensive than most other solids but I love the texture of them and that they are organic. The gorgeous rust brown star print is by Ruby Star Society from The Crafty Mastermind. The yellow binding is fabric I've had since I first started sewing and I used it in the first ever quilt I made, which was for this baby's big brother! So I wanted to incorporate it in this quilt and it matched perfectly. I meant to get a close-up of the binding and the backing as it all works together so well. The backing is a gorgeous elephant print organic cotton by Birch Fabrics, you can see it in this Bear Paw baby quilt I made. I wish I'd taken more photos of this but never mind, I know it's being loved and used and that's the most important thing.
