BookStudyDigest: [New post] Osborn Fiber Studio

Rebecca

Oct 31

In late 2020, when I was just starting to get deep into quilting, I had a vision. Yesterday, I saw it come true.

All three of my girls had, at that point, said blue was their favourite colour. They still all love blue, though their favourites have evolved over time. So I went on Connecting Threads (for knitters: that's the Knitpicks of quilting fabric) and bought a whack of half-yards from their clearance section, all in blues. The girls and I sorted through them, and they helped me decide which they would want. So all three quilts were blue, but they all reflected their personalities.

I finished Stringbean's quilt quickly, in February of 2021.

It's now on the top bunk; at the time she was in the middle. She chose some desaturated warm-shifted blues, leaning in the direction of the minty blue-greens that she's always looked so good in. I used the Friendship Stars quilt pattern from Christa Watson.

MiniMighty chose loud, bold prints with lots of pops of colour. All my kids have strong voices, but she's the most extroverted and outspoken one. I finished Minimighty's quilt pretty quickly as well, by late March 2021. I used the Colorful Bed Quilt pattern from Amy Gibson.

For Dooner's quilt, I chose another Christa Watson pattern: the Starry Path quilt. Dooner was under three when we picked fabrics, so I chose for her, picking the balance of more elegant navies and cool blues.

But after Minimighty's quilt was done, I lost steam on this vision in a major way. I started the epic Lallybroch EPP project, which I might finish before I'm 40. I made a double-sided queen-size quilt for my sister's wedding present. And I made a quilted Christmas tree skirt, a highly practical artifact that we will use for years.

According to my round-up posts, I finally started Dooner's quilt in October 2021, two years ago.

The sawtooth star squares were made with a relative of the half-square triangle technique, which was very cool.

In January 2022, I made the starry path blocks, which required me to learn to use a Tri-recs ruler. The world of quilting rulers is an endless one which reveals the true nature of the craft, but that's another post.

I assembled the border in April 2022, out of quarter-square triangles.

And I finally put the whole top together in July 2022.

As any quilter will tell you, it's easy to stall at this stage. With the quilt top assembled, it feels a little bit like the project is done, and it's a major gear shift to turn to actually quilting it.

In September of that year, I had a couple other major hiccups that made sewing harder. First, one of my children (whom I shall not name) tried to reach something on a high shelf by standing ON MY SEWING MACHINE and broke the light cover in a way that is genuinely not fixable. The machine still works, but it's very unpleasant to use now. Second, I joined Rachel's team, and turned my sewing corner into a podcasting corner. Eventually my friend Lorraine and I refurbished another machine to usable status, but it's hardly surprising that it took me another nine months, until March of 2023, to sew the backing together and baste the quilt.

It sat, fully basted and folded up and put away, for another six months.

The other girls' quilts had been quilted with a combination of walking foot and free-motion quilting. The Starry Path pattern suggested fully free-motion quilting, but I knew that if I was ever to finish this quilt, I would have to keep the quilting very simple. Just a walking foot and wavy lines. I acquired a walking foot for my new-to-me machine. What finally gave me the courage to finish the job was testing the walking foot on another project. Over the course of a week or so, taking an hour here and an hour there, we got 'er done. I hand-sewed the last stitch of the binding on the night of Sunday, October 29th, 2023.

The pattern is called the "Starry Path" quilt because when you put it together, the blocks with the extra-pointy stars and the little blocks come together into diagonal lines. With the darker stars on top, the lighter lines made of squares give the pattern a multi-dimensionality. It was a great next step for me!

Both of the Christa Watson patterns were originally "throw" size designs, with five rows of five stars. I took it upon myself to enlarge the pattern to "twin" size by adding two more rows of stars. But as you see, it covers my Queen-sized bed! And on my kids' bunk beds, which are not engineered to have blankets hanging off the edges, they are really much too big.

I could actually have made the pattern smaller than called for, with 3x5 star blocks, and it would have fit better. Mini-Mighty's quilt, which I accidentally made too narrow, fits her bed much better. I'm not fussed; they will be able to take these quilts with them to college and still use them when they are full-grown.

I re-made the girls' beds yesterday, and they were delighted to come home to their fully assembled beds and coordinating quilts. 2 of 3 girls even made their beds this morning (again, no names).

Of course, the fabric has not yet cooled from the machine and I'm already planning another trio of quilts for them. That's crafting amnesia for you - the energy from finishing something spurs me on to make ten more things. But it's really the energy of making something beautiful that they actually love and brings them joy.

Dooner is now five, and she is so proud to have her own quilt. She would cheer me on and ask me about it over the years, so I think she can appreciate how much work it was. She's my cuddle bear, my most attached child, definitely the baby of the family, with no shortage of big personality. I luvver. You're welcome, baby.