Behind Blue Eyes

Star Quilt Patterns | Whims And Fancies

 

Star patterns in my Shop

 

I will start with a little background story to this quilt.  A few years ago while I was volunteering at a shelter, Mr. Montague Wilberforce joined our little band.  At the time he was a sick, stressed-out, untrusting, biting middle-aged man.  However, over months of care and a lot of patience, he became a healthy, relaxed and loving gentleman who now purrs all the time.  He also likes nothing better than to spend a lot of his day with me.

 

 

Star Quilt Patterns | Whims And Fancies

 

 

Except, there is the little factor of a gigantic Maine Coon boy named Mr. Tuffleberry who has been spending his days with me while I work since he was a tiny little kitten.  He does not like to share his bed.  So Mr. Montague comes by now and then in between his romps around the house to cuddle and sleep on my lap for a while.  Since he loves to be very close to his humans without being on the lap the whole time, he spends the rest of the day with my husband in the next room while he works.

 

 

Star Quilt Patterns | Whims And Fancies

 

 

I really love quilting for my kitties.  I made the 2014 Pantone Challenge quilt for Mr. Tuffleberry while he was recovering from a surgery.  Now it was time to make a personal quilt for Mr. Montague as well.

 

 

Star Quilt Patterns | Whims And Fancies

 

My knitting stars quilt patterns – Aran, Argyle, Vale and Fair Isle

Star patterns in my Shop

 

I had made these vintage-themed star quilt blocks last year.  Having read up on the history of British knitting, I based these patterns on traditional knitting designs.  I made the Argyle and Vale stars first from a set of Grandma’s House fat quarters, and then a mistake led me to making the Fair Isle Star and the Aran Star with different background colours.  I found a perfect Fleur-de-lis grey-cream fabric for the sashing, and I used it for the backing too.  Originally I wanted to hand quilt this, but I am a very slow hand quilter and it would have taken forever.  At the end I decided to machine quilt it with a crisscross diagonal quilting pattern using a green variegated thread and bound the quilt with Kona Chocolate.

 

 

Cat Quilt | Whims And Fancies

 

 

Now my beautiful blue-eyed boy Monty has a quilt made specially for him that he lounges on and I can chalk up another finish.

 

-Soma

 

 

 

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Twilight Star And A Nordic Quilt Layout

Twilight Star Quilt Pattern | Whims And Fancies

 

Purchase Twilight Star Pattern

 

I drew this star quilt pattern some time last year. I remember making this block shortly after designing it, but then it got lost among the ever-growing list of projects. Last weekend, it resurfaced and moved up to the top of the list of quilts I want to make this year.

The idea for this star pattern came to me shortly after our Norway vacation. One of my long-time dreams was to go to Svalbard, Norway, and that happened in 2012.

 

 

Esmark Glacier, Svalbard, Norway | Whims And Fancies

 

Esmark Glacier, Svalbard, Norway

 

We went to see the the Esmark glacier from there. The sharp edges of the ice formation and the colours of the glacier were the inspiration for this star. I imagine the aqua pieces in the block are breaking off and moving away from the middle. I made this one after I made the much simpler Morning Star. This star is a little more complicated, a little more adventurous, so I called it The Twilight Star.

 

 

Star Quilt Layout | Whims And Fancies

 

Purchase Twilight Star Pattern

 

After I made that one block, I started thinking about making a quilt. I wanted to make a Nordic-style quilt, keeping the cool ice-colour palette from my original block. I used part of the original design from the star quilt block and drew a smaller border design. I also started varying the colours a little and this was the resulting layout:

 

 

Twilight Star Quilt Pattern | Whims And Fancies

 

 

I then expanded the quilt layout to make a larger quilt. I think I was having too much fun with the colours to stop at the small layout and was looking for an excuse to keep playing.

The Nordic Star quilt pattern is now in my shop and includes the star and the border patterns along with colouring sheets for both patterns. The star quilt block is 10 inch x 10 inch and the border block is 10 inch x 4 inch.

Although I will be making mine by directly sewing on the paper, freezer paper piecing would work really well with one as well. It’s quite easy to sew triangles and rectangular pieces. I have almost all of the fabric I need to get started with this one.

 

Happy Quilting,
-Soma

 

 

 

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