Starching first!

Best fabric starch

 Time to begin my Christmas projects! I like to get an early start to beat the holiday rush and make sure my quilter has time to quilt my projects early. Faultless Spray Starch is my favorite starch and is available in a 4 pack. It goes fast—buy the larger bottle in a large pack! Fabrics today are more stable, sew together while holding their shape and press better when starched first. Spray your fabrics slowly so it is saturated, then hang to dry. It will dry overnight, then press before beginning your project. I don’t know about you but I can’t wait to get started! 

Batik Double Sawtooth Stars Quilt

Batik Double Sawtooth Stars Quilt

As many quilters do, when I viewed the Double Sawtooth Stars Quilt in a magazine (I don't know which magazine, but will post when I find it), I knew I had to make it. However, the pattern was in just three colors, light blue, purple and dark blue. Of course, I made it my own scrappy type of quilt, deciding to use batiks in purple, aqua and green. 

 In my quilt guild, twelve of us participate in a birthday fabric exchange. At least one month before our birthday, we request a particular type of fabric. Then, on our birthday, we receive 3 fat quarters from each participating member of that fabric. During the year 2011, I requested dark and light Christmas batik fabrics in purple, aqua and green. As you can see, I received 33 beautiful batik fat quarters.

First, I planned each block using one light fabric, one medium and one dark fabric. The small star in the center of the block was made using the medium fabrics, the large star used the dark fabrics, and the background was the light batik fabrics. In all, this quilt has 49 -- 10 inch finished double sawtooth star blocks.

Next, the sashing was made using light and medium batiks. Each year, we are supposed to present our finished quilt on our birthday. Well, in 2012, I presented the top, without borders, on my birthday. It was not completed by my birthday on May 15. I actually spent the summer completing the borders.

The inner border is a red Christmas batik fabric, also used as a dark large star in several blocks, and as the binding. The large outer border, also a Christmas batik fabric, is found in the blocks as a large star. The center border used half square triangles which were the remains of the triangles trimmed from the large star point.

Not all the fabrics are Christmas batiks, but using several of them creates the effect of winter stars. The quilt is king size and is the Christmas/Winter quilt that covers my bed. It is extremely precious to me because my quilting buddies have contributed to this quilt and warms not only my cold feet here in cold NE Ohio, but my heart as well.

Christmas Quilting

The leaves are falling, but it's time to start my Christmas sewing. I pulled some fabric that I purchased previously, used a charm pack (also purchased previously), and added some fabric that was on sale on an on-line store. Popped a Christmas CD into the player and got started! I'm using the new colors of Christmas, lime green, aqua, and red, which are really quite cute. It's a very different look, but I started decorating my Christmas tree with these color, so I can use the table runner next to the tree.

Next, I'm thinking about a Christmas quilt for my king size bed, but haven't found a pattern yet. Also, several years ago, I purchased a fabric with a Santa face from the '60's with a black background. I'd like to fussy cut the Santa into about a 6 inch square, but don't have a pattern in mind for that either. If you have any ideas, let me know!