Sew My Stash: Carpenter's Star

I've been meaning to use more of my fabric collection. Yet I find myself buying more fabric. I decided to pull together some fabrics and make a top completely from my collection. Once I got to pulling fabrics the plan changed slightly. These are not the colors I started with.

These aren't the first fabrics I pulled, but they worked so well I had to use them. I wasn't sure there was enough in this stack to make a big quilt. I got to cutting anyway. I figured I would just pull more from the shelves if needed.

I used Electric Quilt 8 to figure out how big my blocks needed to be to make a large quilt. This one was planned at 78" by 78". Not quite a queen, I guess. If you want to know how to make one similar, there is a simple tutorial available from Texas Quilt Machines. That version uses 6" squares and mine used 9" squares, but the technique is the same. Quilter's Cache also has a small version called Carpenter's Wheel.

I laid out the colors for a 1/4 of the design. I liked how the colors played together, so this is the layout I went with.

Then, I constructed four, giant (36" by 36"), identical blocks. For this design, I have found that this method helps me avoid getting something in the wrong place. Seam two blocks together, then join the two halves like one giant four-patch.

Then I had the center of the quilt.

Then I added the border. My borders measure 3" wide making the quilt 78" by 78" before quilting.

Scrappy binding is always the best!

I picked up the backing for this quilt without the top in hand, so we'll see if it matches well enough to do the trick. The quilt has gone into the pile for the 2018 version of the Get It Done UFO Challenge hosted by Spring Water Designs. They help me focus on at least one project a month. I did a great job keeping up in 2017. I managed to finish 10 out of 12 of those projects. Keep an eye out for my full list for 2018.

Cutting tools: Wrights 3-Inch to 10-1/2-Inch Easy Angle II, Creative Grids 6.5" x 24.5" Rectangle Quilting Ruler, and Deb Tucker's Tucker Trimmer III to square up my half-square triangle units.