It’s time to pull out your favourite fat quarter bundle and stitch up an adorable Winter Star Baby Quilt. I’m sharing the latest one I’ve made in Posey!
Not only was this a quick make, but the prints featured in the Posey fabric collection elicit all the happy springtime vibes, which made for an extra joyful piecing adventure.
And if you’re up for some improv stitching, then you might just use up your entire fat quarter bundle, including your scrappy remnants, making this one of the most sustainable quilty projects!
Today I’m sharing the inspiration behind this latest version, and all the quilty decisions I made along the way!
The Winter Star Quilt Pattern is ready for instant download.
This post contains affiliate links, meaning, at no additional cost to you, if you click through and make a purchase, I may receive a commission.
Fabric to inspire your mood and quilty play!
These fabrics have been hanging out in my fabric cabinet for wayyyy to long. They’ve been quietly beckoning me to just settle in for some quilty fun! And it finally happened one dreary March day when I pulled these colourful pretties out!
The delicate florals and adorable butterflies, paired with the joyful colours instantly lifted my spirits and had me feeling Spring time vibes!
It was an instant feeling of must grab fabric, do not stop, do not pause to consider other pairings, it was a head straight to my pressing mat so I can start cutting, kind of experience.
Surely, you’ve felt those too?!
Well, that’s exactly what I did. I fired up my iron and, while I waited, started pairing them up 😉
This is what I love about textiles, the ability to get us inspired to create!
The key is to move with that feeling and not let it pass you by.
Quilty Pickle
This is a little embarrassing to admit, but I messed up my own pattern – ha! I share that because I love sharing the good and bad experiences that I encounter, and to confirm that mistakes happen! It’s part of the adventure 😉
Here’s how I look at these situations; I can either:
- Freak out and give up; or
- Make it work.
The make-it-work option can be resolved in a few ways:
- Embrace the error and continue the piecing journey.
- Fix the mistake (if possible).
- Re-work the material to create a new idea.
I don’t love unpicking stitches – lol. I suspect none of us do, but it really is part and parcel of sewing. I’ve been working on making friends with my seam ripper, rather than avoiding its use, or seeing it as a negative.
Embracing the seam ripper!
Instead, I’m trying to embrace this nifty tool as my little helper in achieving the results I’m after.
I mention this because, my initial reaction when I discovered my piecing mistake was to resist unpicking.
It’s a knee-jerk reaction that had me going down a fun new layout discovery. And that probably would have happened had I been able to find suitable fabric in my stash to make another Winter Star quilt work.
I mean I could have, I’m sure I could have found some fabric to make it work. However, after doing 3 different fabric pulls to cut out an entirely new Winter Star quilt, none of them felt right. I kept envisioning this Posey version coming to life.
I couldn’t shake it.
So, instead of resisting that urge, I revisited my ‘make it work’ options and opted to not resist the seam ripper, and just fix the mistake.
It really wasn’t that complex to fix either. Maybe 20 seams needed to be ripped, re-paired up, then stitched together, and I was back on track.
My quilty instincts
As I was in the throws of figuring out how to fix my mistake, I kept seeing the fabrics on my little wooden tray, and they made me so happy. Even while unpicking my first set of stitches, I knew that I was on the right track. Every fiber in my body was saying so 😉
Using up every last scrap!
After piecing the quilt top, I was left with a few fabric remnants. It was mainly strips and rectangles that were leftover from cutting out my quilt pieces.
As I was getting ready to pack up the project, I was inspired by those trimmings, and, on a whim, I decided to start laying them out on my cutting mat. Before I knew it, I’d pulled together a fun improv patchwork block that was very stripe-focused!
You know my love for stripes, so the results were particularly joyful for me!
What I loved even more, was that I was able to feature a few more fat quarters to pull together a coordinated and improv patchwork backing.
Quilt Binding
That left me with one full-fat quarter and a partial-fat quarter to see if I could eke out my quilt binding.
It would have been lovely if I could have used just one fat quarter, but it wasn’t enough to bind the entire Winter Star baby quilt. I was tempted to go with a striped black and white fabric for the binding. But I’ve done that so many times and I was looking for something different.
I decided to focus on using up the fat quarters, and tried something new!
Rather than joining the binding strips in one colour followed by the other, I decided to alternate between the two. I was hoping this would create a striped effect between the cream and blue prints that I used.
It worked out perfectly!
And it meant that, instead of having to make room in my fabric scrap bins, I ended up with only one tiny square that needed to be tucked into my improv bin.
I call that a quilty score!
Quilting direction
Since I always like to try new things with every quilt that I make, I took a trip down memory lane to see what quilting motifs I’ve featured on previous Winter Star quilts I’ve made.
With the exception of this Winter Star quilt, which I sent out to be long-armed, all of the other Winter Star quilts featured some form of echo quilting.
- The original Winter Star was machine quilted
- The Forest Talk Winter Star quilt was machine-quilted and hand quilted
- The Rainbow Winter Star quilt was entirely hand quilted
So, this time, I opted for some straight-line machine quilting. I love how it adds a modern touch to a more traditional quilt design.
Materials Needed
Here’s everything I used to bring this baby girl Winter Star Quilt to life:
- Winter Star Quilt Pattern – baby size
- Posey fabric bundle
- Batting
- Sewing Machine
- Sewing machine needles
- 50wt thread for piecing
- 50wt thread of machine quilting
- Pearl cotton thread for big stitch hand binding
- Rotary cutter
- Cutting mat
- Ruler
- Ruler
- Iron
- Wool pressing mat – use code SHANNONFRASER15 to save 15% on your entire order at The Felt Store Canada or The Felt Store USA.
- Fine mist spray bottle
- Embroidery scissors
- Sit ‘n Sew Pin cushion
- Embroidery needle
- Leather thimble
- Finger thimbles – I use the large on my thumb and the medium on my index finger
- Erasable marking tool
- Hera marker
- Walking foot
I hope this latest Winter Star baby quilt made entirely with a fat quarter bundle in Posey encourages you to pull out a favourite FQ bundle and dive in and start sewing!
The Winter Star Quilt Pattern is available for instant digital download here.
Happy quilting!
xo
Shannon
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Shannon, this was a joyful read! You made such a lovely quilt and you did that in spite of problems along the way. I loved hearing about all of it. Great job!
Oh, you’re the sweetest, Hydee! I’m learning to not resist the seam ripper – ha! I’m so happy I didn’t let my mistake stop me from seeing an idea come to life. Hope it encourages you to embrace your seam ripper, too!