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Quilty Love

A quilting creative blog

Star Quilt

The Christmas Compass Star quilt

I can’t believe I never shared this Christmas Compass Star quilt on the blog!

You can find the Compass Star quilt pattern in my shop.

Christmas Compass Star Quilt Pattern

The Compass Star quilt pattern came out a few years. Star quilts make the prettiest Christmas quilts.

It’s funny posting these photos because this quilt was made about two years ago in our last house. It’s a little nostalgic seeing this quilting studio again. 🙂

Compass Star is a really fun star quilt to make up. It goes together pretty easily with quarter square triangles. I really enjoy making quarter square triangles and they don’t have any waste so that is a plus!

Fat quarter or Fat Eighth friendly quilt pattern

The fabrics in this Christmas Compass Star were a curated fat eighth bundle I bought from Pink Castle. It’s a mix of different fabric lines all in pretty Christmas colors. I love a really great traditional Christmas color fabric mix like this one. It’s all reds, greens and some pretty neutrals with gold accents.

Quilt Background – Using Essex Linen

The background of this Christmas quilt is Essex linen in the color black. Essex linen in the darker colors really makes the fabrics pop and helps keep the quilt nice and festive. Plus, Essex is a really WARM fabric so I love using it for holiday quilts that will be out in the dead of winter.

Essex does shrink quite a bit and fray pretty easily so I use a pretty small stitch length like 1.8. I wrote an entire blog post about quilting with Essex Linen here if you want to know more!

Throw size quilt pattern – Comes in all the quilt sizes

This Christmas Compass Star is the throw size. The pattern includes instructions for a baby size, throw size, twin size, queen size and a king size. So pretty much any size quilt you could possibly need!

I’m kind of kicking myself for not taking better photos of this quilt. It really is a pretty one. The dark Essex background is a little more challenging to photograph. I took these photos quickly before selling it in my annual quilt sale last November.

Gingham backing fabric

The backing on this Christmas quilt is a Bonnie and Camille Gingham that I had on hand. Isn’t it the perfect Christmasy quilt backing?! It’s an older print so is probably out of print by now. Here is a similar gingham print.

You can see I didn’t bother to match the pattern on the backing. I rarely do to be honest. It’s an extra step I don’t like taking but it wouldn’t have been hard with this print and then the backing would have looked seamless.

Quilt Binding

I used the leftover cut off backing fabric as the binding on this Christmas Compass Star. I love that it uses up that extra fabric and this one worked so well as a binding print. I don’t mind that there is no contrast on the back side between the binding and backing.

I tend to use that left over fabric as binding more times than not.

Long arm quilting

Knot and Thread quilted this Christmas quilt for me. I always have her pick the quilting design and I really love this one that she chose. It’s a pretty festive quilting design that works well with these blocks.

Annual Christmas Quilts

I usually make at least one Christmas quilt each year. I really enjoy sewing Christmas quilts around Christmas time so they aren’t usually getting done in time for the season. But I’m totally fine with that as quilting is all about the process for me. The last thing we need in this house is another quilt…haha so I quilt purely for the joy of quilting.

I believe this was my 2018 Christmas quilt. I’ll be posting the 2019 Christmas quilt next as I just got it back from the quilter. 🙂

You can find Compass Star in my pattern shop.

The automatic download is available here.

The mailed paper option is available here.

Quilty Stars Quilt – the happy scrappy one

This Scrappy Quilty Stars quilt may be a new favorite! I’m pretty sure I’ve claimed no less than 25 quilts as my favorite so far…ha.

This may be by far the most satisfying quilt I’ve made. The quilt top is 100% fabrics scraps!

Quilty Stars is available in the Quilty Love pattern shop.

I made this scrappy version during the quilt along last summer. It really was an enjoyable one to make with all that scrappy goodness.

Scrap buster quilt pattern

I wrote the Quilty Stars quilt pattern with scraps in mind! I love using up my scrap stash every few quilts. This one is a really great scrap buster! Especially if you use low volume scraps as the background like this.

My low volume background is not always very subtle but it’s one of my favorite scrap bins to dig through. It’s usually just as full as my blue bin.

Quilty Stars quilt pattern

Quilty Stars is fat quarter and scrap friendly. The quilt pattern includes instructions for a baby size, throw size, twin size and a king size.

I would call Quilty Stars a confident beginner quilt pattern. This quilt uses squares and half square triangles. Majority of my patterns have you making the half square triangles too big and then trimming to size. That really helps keep them nice and precise and that’s much easier on beginner quilters.

I somehow end up with more blue fabric scraps than any other color and so far I’ve made a couple of scrappy blue quilts. They are my favorite 🙂

Quilty Stars is perfect for those 2.5in square fabric scraps we all end up with.

Free Motion stippling on the Janome MC6700p

This scrappy Quilty Stars quilt is quilted with a Janome MC6700p. I tried free motion quilting this one! I have only free motion quilted a handful of times but it sure is fun!

I sure could use the practice so this was a good practice quilt with it’s busy scrappy fabrics. I just did stippling and let me tell you, it’s not as easy as it looks! You will feel like you are doing a terrible job as you are in the thick of it but then when you step back it always looks better.

There really is only one way to get better… and that is by actually doing. So I say just jump in and don’t be afraid to “ruin” a few quilts. I promise it will look better than you think in the end 🙂

Free motion quilting really is relaxing and actually pretty fast.

Quilty Stars quilt pattern by Emily of quiltylove.com

I finally got around to photographing this one a few days ago. These photos were all taken with my iphone! I used this quilt as an example in my Pinterest course, Pin it for Sales. The entire photo and photo editing process is included in the course.

Quilty Stars quilt pattern by Emily of quiltylove.com

Free motion stippling quilting really gives a quilt some great texture.

Quilty Stars quilt pattern by Emily of quiltylove.com

The binding on this scrappy quilt is an older Add it up print. The backing is a Bonnie and Camille gingham from my stash.

Quilty Stars quilt pattern by Emily of quiltylove.com

One of the things I love about scrappy quilts is the memories from all of the different fabrics. So many good fabrics all mixed together into one quilt!

Quilty Stars quilt pattern by Emily of quiltylove.com
Quilty Stars quilt pattern by Emily of quiltylove.com
Quilty Stars quilt pattern by Emily of quiltylove.com
Quilty Stars quilt pattern by Emily of quiltylove.com
Quilty Stars quilt pattern by Emily of quiltylove.com
Quilty Stars quilt pattern by Emily of quiltylove.com
Quilty Stars quilt pattern by Emily of quiltylove.com
Quilty Stars quilt pattern by Emily of quiltylove.com
Quilty Stars quilt pattern by Emily of quiltylove.com
Quilty Stars quilt pattern by Emily of quiltylove.com

I made these sample blocks below in preparation for the quilt along. I really love this star quilt made up in one color but I’m tempted to use these blocks to make a multi color version.

You can make up your own Quilty Stars quilt using your scraps and the Quilty Stars quilt pattern.

Star Fall Quilt – The Ruby Star Society Speckled one

I have another Star Fall quilt to share with you today 🙂 The Star Fall quilt pattern is available in the Quilty Love pattern shop.

I worked with a lot Ruby Star Society fabric for this latest round of patterns. Specifically, these speckled basics. This was the first time using these basics and I sure am hooked. It’s the perfect middle ground between a solid and print. It’s a very subtle print. I love that.

Specked colors used in this star quilt are Soft blue, Teal, Turquoise, Soft Aqua and Emerald Green.

Star Fall Quilt Pattern

Star Fall is a bold and modern star quilt pattern using 5 of your favorite prints, solids or scraps! Be sure to check out this scrappy version.

Quilt sizes

This quilt pattern includes instructions for a crib size, a throw size and a king size. The layout stays the same with each size but the block grows. So it starts out smaller for the crib and gets much larger for the king.

This blue and green star fall quilt was quilted by my local quilter.

It’s backed with another Ruby Star Society basic. This is grid in the color Peacock. The binding is Speckled in the color Cactus.

The colors in this quilt are some of my favorites! I asked my husband to choose between some mock ups and he chose this one because it’s basically Seattle Mariners colors. Ha. He’s not wrong about that.

This Speckled version of the Star Fall quilt pattern is the throw size of this quilt. It’s a nice generous size but goes together fairly quickly. I would call this an ambitious beginner quilt mostly because of the flying geese.

Star Fall is available in the Quilty Love shop as a PDF instant download or a paper booklet.

Specked fabrics:
Soft blue
Teal
Turquoise
Soft Aqua
Emerald Green
Binding: Cactus
Backing: Grid in Peacock

Star Fall Quilt – A simple star quilt pattern

Star Fall is a brand new quilt pattern in the Quilty Love shop! Star Fall is a simple yet bold sawtooth star quilt pattern.

Yardage quilt

Star Fall is a nice quick and easy quilt pattern that uses 5 different solids or prints or even your scrap stash. The baby sizes uses 1/4 yards or fat quarters and the throw size uses half yards.

3 quilt sizes

Star Fall includes instructions for a crib size, throw size and a king size. The star quilt block expands with each size so the layout is the exact same for all three quilt sizes.

Solids Star Fall quilt

This throw size version of the Star Fall quilt uses Robert Kaufman solids:
Cypress, Azure, Pacific, Curry and Ice Frappe.

The green on the end of this quilt is Kona Cotton in the color Cypress and it may be a new favorite! It’s such a beautiful color green.

Wavy quilting

Star Fall is quilted up using the serpentine stitch on my Janome sewing machine. This stitch is so good! It looks good on every single quilt and its super easy to do. It’s basically straight line quilting using a walking foot and the machine makes the waves.

For this quilt the lines are spaced at one inch. The stitch length is 3 and the width is 6.

When quilting straight lines I like to first quilt every other line (so two inches apart) and then go back through and fill in the lines in between. I start on one edge and work all the way to the other edge without flipping the quilt. You could also start in the middle do half the quilt and then flip and repeat on the other side.

The little lady made her appearance during this quilt photo shoot :).

Quilt backing

The backing fabric is a Basic Grey print by Moda. It’s from the Metropolis line. I really love using a neutral backing for quilts that are full of color or pattern on the front. The black backing keeps this star quilt super modern and fun.

Binding

This quilt is finished off with a 1/4 inch black and white striped binding. It’s been a while since I’ve used a striped binding so I thought it would be a good way to finish off this quilt.

This is the throw size version of this quilt. It’s a nice generous throw size. The pattern includes a queen size and crib size version as well.

Star Fall is available in the Quilty Love pattern shop as a PDF instant download or a paper booklet.

Materials:


Kona Cotton:
Cypress
Azure
Pacific
Curry
Ice Frappe
Backing: Metropolis Basic Grey
Binding: 1/4in stripe
Spray basted using 505
Pieced and Quilted on a Janome MC6700P