A House Warming Quilt

Well, this quilt design changed a few times before I settled on the final plan.  I had found a king sized quilt in a magazine that I liked that was made up of different varieties of Ohio star blocks.  The king size inspired a 40 x 40 inch square wall quilt project and was also why my last post was a 'Block of  the Week' featuring the Ohio Star for some practice.  The colors and sizes of the blocks in the magazine were fairly hap hazard as it was indicated in the article as a 'block swap' project.   A block swap is just what it sounds like.. kinda like a cookie swap but instead of everyone bringing 12 dozen cookies to the party, they each bring 12 quilt blocks and then the swapping begins.  Each person attending then creates a project using the blocks that were collected up at the block swap.  Sounds a lot funner to me than the old boring Tupperware party!  Except for the fact that I'd be playing the part of all  12 of the party goers... I was excited and ready to start the project.

I wanted to keep the project kinda neutral and stick to earthy colors.  I ended up using two fabric collection's that were both offered by the designers from Kansas Troubles Quilters called "Sandhill Plums" and "Cattails & Clover".  I like the overall feel of the mix of the colors and hoped it wouldn't be too dark of a project when completed.  My one complaint is that once I had all my fabrics together and was making my final decisions as to what specific pieces to use where the overall look started to kinda feel a bit too much like Christmas colors, but I really love all the fabrics that I chose so I kept those choices.

The project is intended to be a house warming gift for two friends of mine who just purchased their first home together.  They had invited our family to a party to celebrate and I was looking forward to having the project together as the gift I would bring.  I knew the basic color schemes that they liked and was hopeful  these would fit into their decor.  A few times working on this project I did second guess things.  Making a quilt for someone's bed is one type of gift, but making a quilt intended only to be displayed on a wall, kinda a whole other thing.  I felt a like it may be somewhat presumptuous and I wouldn't want someone to feel compelled to hang it up when it may not be entirely their style.  I suppose that this could be an item displayed in winter or during the holidays, although I hope they like it enough to have it hang in their home all year round.

During my preparation for this project I made a not so startling revaluation... as noted in my 'BOTW - Ohio Star' post, I hate traditional piecing method for putting flying geese together.  Of course, what's an Ohio Star but a 9 patch block that incorporates flying geese!!  So, that's where the plan that I had sketched out in my graph paper  notebook changed from many different Ohio Star blocks of all sizes and some inside other blocks to only one size Ohio Star block, then again to one giant lone star block surrounded by a boarder of Ohio stars.
 
I know what you're thinking... 'hasn't she made enough lone star quilts!?!'  I admit.. I do that pattern a lot.. but I do love it.  The lone star (or Bethlehem star) is one of my favorites.. it's challenging and dramatic when you do it right.  This one is a great example and proved to me that I'm getting better and being precise when piecing it.  After all there are a lot of points that need to match up.  However, it is becoming a bit over done, so I promise after this project to branch out a bit more and save the Bethlehem stars for Christmas.  I may branch out into a project that is more of a a compass star or some type of star that is a bit more challenging.  With this I can use strip piecing and can usually put a star like this together in 1 evening if I've pre-cut my fabrics already.

I wanted the binding of this project to reflect a few different fabrics that were inside the field of the quilt.  And since this item will most likely be on a wall where the back is not displayed or visible I used several different fabrics rather than a one piece back.

The final project completed.  It was a fun project, perhaps a slightly smaller size next time, but I think it will look good within my friends' home.