Garden Stars: A Chalk Stars Variation

Welcome, welcome, welcome to Garden Stars, which was made using my Chalk Stars pattern!

I loved my original Moda Grunge version of the quilt (so much that I named the pattern based     on that color palette), but I am also in love with this floral version made with all Figo fabrics.  The rainbow is a little more muted but the movement in it is so great!  Not to mention, this amazing photo that I was able to take at a children's garden by my house.  The clouds were moving across the sun the entire time I was there and I got several nice compliments from walkers while I was waiting for the shade to come back.

It's no secret that curves (also known as Drunkard's Path blocks) are one of my favorite things to sew - they look so impressive but are so easy to put together once you get the hang of it.  I sew my curves together without using pins, but any method gives you the same final result.  This quilt is a great learning option because the curves don't have to match up to each other.  Each petal is meant to be abstract, so a little variation won't stand out at all.  Another thing that I love about this quilt is that the rainbow rings of petals look amazing in any orientation.  It's an optical illusion - you can see three rows of three rainbow rings when you really just pieced two rows of two rings each with a couple of filler petals around the outside.

I quilted the Garden Stars version of my quilt myself, then decided to experiment with my first-ever bias binding.  When I purchased the fabric online, I didn't realize the green background fabric was directional (I thought it was more of an abstract swirl).  I went ahead and used it, purposely not paying attention to the direction of the lines in each piece; you can't really see it unless you are up close anyway.  But when it was time to bind the quilt, I decided to do a bias binding so that the direction in the binding didn't match any of the directions in the quilt.  It looks great and it was so much easier to hand-stitch down - I think I'm a convert!

Not only is the front of my quilt gorgeous, I wanted the back to be a show-stopper as well.  Instead of using a single fabric, I made a giant nine-patch that features all of the fabrics I used on the front!

Doing the back up this way also solved another common quilting problem I have - how to back a quilt that is too small for a wideback or two lengths of fabric, but too big for a single length of fabric.  I wrote a picture-heavy Quilt Back Styles blog post last week, and this solution of using the front fabric on the back of the quilt is included in the Chalk Stars pattern!

I hope this post has convinced you that curves aren't scary and can be fun to sew!  If you have any questions, I'm happy to answer them!  Chalk Stars is available in my pattern shop and you can save 30% off the pattern with the code QUILTBACK until the end of August!  Happy sewing!

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Pattern: Chalk Stars

Finished Size: 56" x 56"

Quilted: Free-motion quilted on my domestic machine by me

More Pictures: Original Chalk Stars

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Chalk Stars was originally published in Make Modern magazine (affiliate link), and is now available as a stand-alone pattern in my pattern shop!