My friend Evan got married!

We met in Kindergarten and grew up together in the background of this picture. Obviously, after 25 years of friendship, a quilt was in order.

A few months ago, I asked Evan for his and his fiancée’s favorite colors, and decided to make a two-color quilt for them with his response. I had been itching to try Accuquilt’s Hunter’s Star die and this seemed like the perfect excuse to give it a whirl.

Evan relayed Tiffany’s color of choice, saffron, while he chose grey. (Gold & silver!) I picked out two Timeless Tonga batiks and got to work.

I had a guild retreat in early June, so I ran all the fabric through the die cutter one afternoon in April. In the time it took me to watch two bad movies, I was done cutting! I made a single test block, and held onto the rest of the pieces until retreat time. My fellow mod Brian pointed out that I probably should have made my test block before cutting out the ENTIRE quilt, which is solid advice. I was just having so much fun cranking that die back and forth that it never even occurred to me!

These are all the pieces that make up the quilt top. Packing them for the retreat was cake; they barely took up any space. Which was good, since our carpool was jammed tight!

We had a BLAST at the retreat. There were lots of times my face hurt from laughing so hard. While Jorge and all the other guys were out in California for Evan’s bachelor party, I was zipping away at the wedding quilt.

This was our home away from home – Ladore Retreat Center in Waymart, PA.

This quilt is a chain piecing endurance test, but the payoff is hugely gratifying. I went for the 60″ x 72″ size, which uses 30 blocks comprised of four “mini” blocks each. So for three days, I was the quilting version of Bill Murray in Groundhog Day, and my workstation looked like this:

I came home with 120 of these:

Once you get those baby blocks done, the rest goes quickly. It’s so exciting to see the stars come together at this point.

The coolest thing about this quilt is Eleanor Burns’ method for keeping the center of the star flat. Since so many points converge there, a typical 4-patch construction would create a lot of bulk. The pattern instructs you on how to get a nice flat center that looks like this:

Squashing and pressing those centers feels sooooo satisfying.

It only took me a couple more nights at home to finish the quilt top. Not long after, I had it basted, free motion quilted, and ready to bind.

I used my machine‘s lettering and decorative stitches for the label. I like playing around with those features that I hardly ever have a reason to use.

It washed up so soft and crinkly. Jorge helped me photograph it on the roof… and gave it a test snuggle.

Congrats on tying the knot, Evan and Tiffany!

Hugs,
Hayden

P.S. Jorge made them a quilty wedding gift too! Check out his wall hanging. The pattern is from Heather Jones’s book, Quilt Local. So proud of my quilter-in-training!

The fabrics are Timeless basics (neutral Soho Solids + a dark Java Blender batik) and Liberty Lawn (from when a fabric store near my office had a bunch of rolls for $10/yd!).

Heather’s pattern was inspired by tile work, and Quilt Local is all about finding quilt inspiration in your everyday surroundings. As we headed down from the roof, we noticed this window in our building’s hallway resembled the quilt!

Love it. ❤

Hugs,
Hayden