On the Worktable: Christmas Stars

Hi everyone! I hope you are having a good weekend. Yesterday, I dropped everything to start a new quilt for Christmas. Last year I came up with the design and bought all the fabric for the top, but I ran out of time. Once Christmas was over, I didn't feel like working on it anymore. You know how it goes. This year I'm not in a panic to finish it in time for Christmas. I just wanted something crafty and festive to work on in the evenings.

EQ Mockup

The design is loosely based on my Stargazer pattern. I inverted the stars, added a border and chose a fun, unconventional Christmas color for my background. The dimensions of the stars are exactly the same as the pattern. I will show you later in the week how to make a Stargazer quilt using layer cakes and charm packs.

Cherry Christmas by Aneela Hoey for Moda

The fabric is a layer cake of Cherry Christmas by Aneela Hoey. I absolutely love this collection! Aneela's illustrations are so charming and her colors are fresh and festive. The solids are Jade and Red by FreeSpirit. Teal again? I know some of you are shaking your heads. While it is one of my favorite colors, it's also perfect for this project. I needed something that would contrast with each print - including my favorites with a white background. Taking clues from the colors in fabric, I looked at deeper shades of grey, red, green and aqua.

I liked the charcoal a lot, but I decided against it because that much dark grey would make the quilt feel dark and heavy.

The claret and moss are lovely and would give the quilt a pretty snow lodge, woodsy Christmas feel. We get sun instead of snow in the winter where I live. Once the leaves fall off the trees the quality of the light outside is cool and bright. In other words, I don't feel very woodsy at Christmastime, I feel bright and sunny.

Which brings me back to teal. I tried shades darker and lighter than the aqua background from fabric. Both teal and mist looked awesome and it was just a matter of choosing one. FreeSpirit's Jade is bright, happy, and wintery all at once. It makes the aqua, grey, green, red and white all shine. 

It's kind of perfect.

UPDATE: Here is the cutting guide for making these blocks with layer cakes and charm packs. 


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