I love this quilt……

Christmas Stars

This quilt has been in my life for 20 years, but until yesterday I couldn’t say that is was complete. I started it as a class at Log Cabin Fabrics. It was a block of the month class that met the first Thursday of the month for either 6 months or a year – I can’t remember. Seems to me we got 2 blocks each month. I opted to hand piece the blocks. I made the decision to hand piece the blocks for a few different reasons.

First, I love to hand piece, second, there are a lot of points in these blocks and I wanted to be sure to have pointy points, third, I love hand piecing! I loved the fact that I could take the work with me where ever I was, in the car, at a field hockey game or the orthodontics office. Those places were all part of my life when I started this quilt. How life has changed.

So you wonder, why if I loved the blocks so much and took them with me just about everywhere, did it take 20 years to complete. It became a UFO (unfinished object) for a few reasons. After piecing all of the blocks they were all different sizes, not because I pieced them wrong – the idea was to trim the blocks to all match. The problem with that was that I would need to cut off my precious points in order to have them all the same size. They were stuck in a box to wait til later. I would pull them out a few times a year and try to come up with a solution.

Well after 20 years I have progressed as a quilter and an idea finally came to me. Add background borders to all of the blocks and them trim them so that all of the points would show and the blocks would all measure 17 1/2″ square. Next step – put the quilt together – add sashing and borders.

Then it needed to be quilted. I could not hand quilt it or it would take another 20 years to complete. I don’t feel skilled enough to quilt it on my sewing machine. A good friend suggested a long arm quilter that she has worked with. I packed it up and sent it to Shirley York of Blue Moose Quilting.

Well, Shirley is truly an artist! The quilting that she did on this quilt is wonderful, whimsical, it “completes” my quilt in a wonderful way. Here are some pictures to show you how special it is.