FRIENDSHIP STAR QUILT

What a gorgeous fall morning it is!!  The sun is shining and the air is crisp.  The leaves are starting to turn here in southeast Tennessee and, occasionally, you can smell the aroma associated with leaves burning.  That always reminds me of my childhood.

It has been a week since I last posted because I was having difficulty with my camera settings.  I think I have solved it now with some help from my friend, Ava.  The pictures that follow may not be as crisp as some from earlier posts but, at least, I can now post them.

My sister asked me to make a quilt for her to give her son for a Christmas gift.  I wanted something that was masculine, but not just sports, motorcycles, and race cars.  I went into my stash and started pulling out fabrics to use.  I narrowed it down to a predominance of blues and browns.  Again this quilt will qualify for the category of "Making Do" that I pledged to try this year.  Using fabrics from my stash without making a significant fabric purchase is a real reward in itself.  After completing this quilt, I had hardly made a dent in my blues and browns.  The neutrals are showing some "denting"  so I may have to replenish those as I go along if I want to keep using neutrals for backgrounds.

The pattern I chose is the Friendship Star made from split 9-patch blocks. This layout is similar to the way you would lay out a Log Cabin quilt top.

The neutrals vary from very light to dark light and even some with an orange floral.  There are a couple of  other "ringers" thrown in for interest.  I think putting a few patches of red in the darks and a few patches with pale pink or yellow in the neutrals gives some spark and energy to the overall pattern.

Working scrappy is a challenge for some quilters.  I have tried to encourage my buddies to give it a try.  I firmly commit to the mantra "Value makes the statement in a quilt, but Color gets all the credit".  Scrappy quilts allow you to be free with a color palette and use anything/everything in a color family regardless of its theme or style.  My one hesitation is not to use Batiks and plaids with most other fabrics.  My reason for that is not that they would not work.  They certainly would.  I just like to keep my Batiks as a separate category because en masse they give such a unique look to a quilt.  The same is true for plaids in general.  My personal preference with plaids is to make them a focal fabric and have the background/neutrals play a supporting role.  Just my opinion, you see.

This particular layout has a little modern twist to it.  It is a variation from one of Karen Combs' layouts in her book, "Combing Through Scraps".

The center detail:

The quilt measures 63" x 81".  My sister asked me to make it for him to use on his sofa for TV watching with his girl friend.  I think it will be perfect for that.

I chose to leave it without a border --  this again lends itself to a little more modern approach.  It allows the design to drift off the edges of the quilt.

I am making three more of these quilts for gifts.  I will post more pictures as I finish each quilt.  Choice of fabric certainly changes the look.

Enjoy!!

                                                 -sandi