Category: Projects

After making my Giant Hunter’s Star quilt , it occurred to me that I could make the block even bigger.  What would it look like to have just one big hunter’s star for a quilt top?  I started it immediately and set a timer to see how long it would take.  Two hours later I had a Supergiant Hunters Star quilt top.


Just like the Giant Hunter’s Star , the Supergiant Hunter’s Star quilt requires only two cuts of fabric for the quilt top:  two yards of a focal print and two yards of coordinating fabric make a 68″ square quilt.  This pattern is perfect for those large, gorgeous prints that you can’t bear to cut up.


It’s also pretty great to start and finish a quilt top in less than two hours.  That part makes it great for gifts.


I quilted mine like I did my Flight Quilt years ago, in a spiral starting at the center of the quilt.  I don’t think I would do it again, though.  All that fabric cut on the bias in the center didn’t love having me move it around in circle after circle.  I created a bit of a ripple in the center of the quilt.  Oops.  I’ve since blocked the quilt and it’s a lot better, but be warned.  The spiral quilting looks cool on this quilt but it came at a cost!



The pattern for the Supergiant Hunter’s Star quilt is available in my Etsy shop .

The pattern is technically called the Giant Hunter’s Star because I combined the two patterns into one, giving you instructions for two quilts at the price of one!
Two yards each of two coordinating fabrics and you can make either quilt.

I love all the “twos” in this project:  two fabrics, two yards, two patterns, two hours…  I might need to make another!

A few months ago I experimented with making a Giant Hunter’s Star quilt.  My idea was to make the Hunter’s Star pattern work with a larger scale print.


I had two yards of a cheerful ocean-themed fabric covered in crabs, anchors, seaweed and shells.  It needed to be used and I wanted a quick finish.  I found a coordinating blue solid and started cutting.  To my surprise, I had a finished quilt top in just over two hours!


Making four large blocks created another star in the very center of the quilt.  With two yards of my feature fabric and two yards of a coordinating one I made a 64″ square lap quilt.  Two more yards for backing and 5/8 yards for binding and I had a finished quilt!


I had fun quilting this.  I gave myself permission to practice free motion quilting so I followed the outlines of the designs in the printed fabric, did an orange peel in all the stars, and organic straight lines in the blue background.


This seashell print is a fun one so I combined it with a blue stripe for a happy quilt back.

The other happy thing I did was write the Giant Hunter’s Star quilt pattern , which is now available in my Etsy shop .
It’s nice to have a pattern that can be made quickly, especially when you need to make a quilt to gift on short notice.


It gets even better, though:  I increased the size again and made a one block Supergiant Hunter’s Star quilt , too.  The fabric requirements are the same for both so you get two quilt patterns for the price of one.
Download yours today and get started!


Happy Sewing!
Jennifer

I promised myself I would finish any patriotic colored projects before Labor Day this year, and there’s nothing like sneaking in right at the deadline!  Today I quilted and bound my Vintage Summer String Quilt.  This might be my oldest WIP – I posted my first blocks here and here back in 2012.

Ouch .  My husband walked through the kitchen just now and congratulated me on getting it done.  Then he asked, “How long ago did you say you started it?  Was it nine months?”  I laughed and said “2012” to which he replied, “There have been an awful lot of world events that took place since you started that quilt!”


So true, and there have been a lot of personal and family events in that same time!  So, why finish it now?  I pulled my blocks out every year or so to that question.  It felt like a lot of work.  Every time I looked at the fabrics I concluded that I still loved them, so yes, I wanted to finish it.  My vintage summer string quilt is foundation paper pieced, meaning the strips were sewed onto paper, and I followed this pdf for my measurements.  I wrote on the back of each block which block it was in the quilt.


This quilt is not my best work.  This was my first experience with paper piecing.  I bought a random pad of paper at the office supply store simply because it was 11″ wide, and didn’t notice I was buying a slippery, glossy paper that would make accuracy difficult.   I had never heard of my (now favorite) Carol Doak newsprint which is perfect for fpp.  It even comes in legal size which would have been perfect for this project.  So I sewed and my fabric moved and slipped and accuracy was a real challenge.  I put it away, intending to re-do the inaccurate blocks, and when I got it out again a year or two later, I would start in a different place, always writing on the back of the blocks, always with the same challenge, and put it away again.


This year I made the decision to use every block as it was, finish the last few (with glue to help, this time) and sew the quilt top together.  I’m glad I did.  It’s an imperfect quilt with a long journey and many mistakes, but I love it.  The  mismatched seams have nothing to do with usefulness.  Kind of like people, like real life.  Done is better than perfect!


From a distance I enjoy the lights and darks.  It’s interesting how distance softens my mistakes as well; a good life  reminder for me.   I am grateful I located yardage of a two prints a few years ago which I used for the backing.


I also saved a fun red, white and blue stripe for binding, and it looks great.  Lately I’ve hand finished all my bindings but today I opted to finish it by machine.  I quilted it in white thread with straight lines in all the white strips.


My Vintage Summer string quilt is the only string quilt I’ve ever made.  It might be fun to make another in a different style someday.  For today, I’m celebrating a finished quilt, one last day of flags for the summer, and keeping commitments to myself.  That last one especially.  I love keeping a promise I make to myself.


Happy Labor Day!

Jennifer