Kicking off Christmas in July with a fat-quarter-friendly option! Now, the rainbow colours might not be in line with Christmas, but the Winter Star quilt pattern is very amenable to whatever colours and prints you want to feature.
Do you find yourself with an overflow of fabric?
Me too!
This is why, for this one, I was challenging myself to make it as fat-quarter-friendly as possible.
Read on to see how I did that, and the challenges I faced along the way!
For more baby quilt ideas, check out:
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Where this quilt started
Fat Quarter Bundle
With so many fat quarter bundles hanging out in my fabric stash, this time around, I wanted to challenge myself to use only the FQ bundle. I didn’t want to pull out any yardage. I didn’t want to coordinate with another fabric line. My goal was to create something quick, easy, and, above all, that was fun to stitch.
Enter this gorgeous fat quarter bundle designed by Sally Kelly for Windham Fabrics.
I’ve had this bundle for quite some time, and it’s been tempting me every time I open the doors to my fabric cabinet.
What I love about the Celeste collection is that it kinda reads as a solid instead of a print. The motifs are small and subtle, but add detail and dimension when you’re up close. And the colours are just so uplifting and happy!
Just look at how pretty they are!
This is why I wanted to keep the focus on them without anything else to distract from them.
The Fabric Plan!
So, my goal was to use as much of the FQ bundle as I possibly could.
After spending a little time with the fabrics (do you just sit and ogle your fabrics, too?!), I decided to pair them up based on colour play.
- Green tones with green tones
- Blue tones with blue tones
- Purple tones with purple tones
- Pink with orange and yellow – ha! I broke the colour rhythm here, but that’s ok. I like how it adds a subtle pop to the final composition 😉
Piecing
The quilt top
The quilt top was super fun to piece. What is it about working with bright colours that always gets me in a good mood? Add in adorable half-square triangles and it was a match made in heaven.
Such an easy way to sneak joy into your day 😉
If you’re new to HSTs, check out my half-square triangles tutorial series for all the helpful tips:
- How to make 2-at-a-time HST
- How to make 4-at-a-time HST
- How to make 8-at-a-time HST
- How to trim HST with a regular ruler
- Top 3 Notions for HST trimming
Party on the quilt back
When it came time to find a backing for this baby quilt, I was initially tempted to pull out some yardage. But then I looked at the scraps that were sitting on my sewing table and the fat quarters that remained from the collection, and I thought “Let’s take this FQ challenge to the next level!”.
Since my goal was to feature as much of the bundle as possible, I decided to use the remaining fabric I had on hand to come up with a scrappy backing.
The starting point?
A full fat quarter!
I’ve never done this before where I just threw an entire FQ up on my design wall (DIY tutorial to make your own here) and then built the composition around that.
There were some limiting factors; namely, I was running out of fabric fast!
So, you’ll notice that there’s some clever piecing and maximizing of scraps to make it happen 😉
The Quilting
When it was time to quilt her up, I was about to head out on Christmas holidays, and I usually love having a hand-quilting project to work on during those quiet weeks.
After working on the Refracted Star Table Runner, my hands weren’t in the best shape (lots of cracked fingers), and so I only got about a quadrant of the quilt hand-quilted.
When we were back from vacation, I snuck in progress in the early mornings before my day got started. You know my love for early morning stitch sessions, and there’s something extra glorious about hand quilting on quiet winter mornings.
Over the coming weeks, I was able to get this baby quilt fully hand-quilted in this gorgeous pink pearl cotton thread.
I almost went with yellow thread, but there’s something about the pop of pink that I felt complimented all of the colours in the quilt
Quilt Binding
Once again, I was determined to stick with the Celeste fat quarter bundle. But with the quilt top and pieced backing super colourful and detailed, I decided to ground the quilt with a simple black and white binding. I would have preferred to have just the black, but a fat quarter wasn’t quite enough to make it around the entire perimeter of the quilt.
Sometimes we’ve just gotta make it work with what we have on hand, right?!
What was fun is that I don’t often stitch with black thread, but I thought it would be the perfect choice for some big stitch hand binding.
I wanted the texture the pearl cotton offers, but I didn’t want to add another colour into the mix. There was already so much colour and I wanted to keep the colour focus within the quilt composition. So, I opted to match the thread to my binding.
Materials featured
To make a similar Winter Star quilt, here’s everything you’ll need:
- Winter Star Quilt Pattern – baby size
- Celeste Fat Quarter Bundle (or 12 FQs for the quilt top)
- 50wt Aurifil Thread for piecing
- 8wt Pearl Cotton Thread for hand quilting
- 8wt Pearl Cotton Thread for big stitch hand binding
- HST Ruler
- Rotating cutting mat
- Square Ruler
- Ruler
- Cutting Mat
- Rotary cutter with these blades
- Scissors
- Sewing machine
- Sewing machine needles
- Iron
- Wool pressing mat – Use code SHANNONFRASER15 to save 15% on your wool pressing mat(s) at The Felt Store Canada or The Felt Store USA. Offer cannot be combined with other discounts.
- Spray bottle
- Erasable marking tool
- Seam ripper
- Needle for hand sewing
- Thimble
- Small scissors
- Pincushion
Shop my most used notions here.
For more Winter Star quilt inspiration, check out:
I hope this baby Winter Star Quilt has inspired you to head to your fabric stash and pull out your favourite fat quarter bundle! It felt so good to finally cut into these pretties, and now I have an adorable quilt to show you😊 I say we need to trust that cutting into our FQ bundles will lead to happy quilt adventures!
Get the Winter Star quilt pattern in the shop to get started on your own quilt today!
xo
Shannon
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Great quilt Shannon! I love the bright colours and the pink thread you used for the quilting. A fun pieced back finishes it off perfectly. I just finished hand quilting a wall hanging yesterday…on to the binding today.
Oh, I love that step in the quilt making journey, Gail! It’s always a special moment to get to be up close with all those pretty fabrics you’ve been stitching with. Have fun!
Love love ❤️ this beautiful Baby quilt pattern. Where can I get it
So thrilled this one caught your eye, Peggy! You can find the Winter Star quilt pattern here: https://shannonfraserdesigns.com/collections/quilt-patterns/products/winter-star-quilt-pattern-pdf – happy stitching!
Love the colors! Do you use a frame or hoop when you hand quilt? What is your method to keeping the sandwich smooth as you quilt it?
Great question, Kelly! I actually prefer hand quilting without a hoop or frame. I’ve generally found the frame and hoops to be more cumbersome than helpful. The method I use to keep everything nice and smooth, is to first smooth the section that I’m working on out by hand as I’m adding the stitches. I like to ‘shove’ the quilt into the palm of my left hand, and use the my fingers to smooth the backing fabric underneath. It’s worked like a charm!
Oh, those prints are so delightful – beautiful finish!
They’re so delightful, Yvonne! Super joyful to stitch with. Happy you like them too!
Beautiful pattern love your choice of fabric colors.
Thank you so much! It’s fun to see how the colours play off one another!
Hi Shannon! What kind of needle do you recommend for hand quilting?
Great question, Patty! I’ve rounded up all my hand quilting essentials in this post: https://shannonfraserdesigns.ca/2023/11/10/what-you-need-to-hand-quilt/ – let me know if that does the trick!