Quilters Dream Green & Summer Star Quilt [pic heavy]

About a year ago I took a class on Y-seams at my local quilt shop.  We used the Tumbling Blocks Table Runner pattern from the 2012 book Friendship Strips & Scraps from Laundry Basket Quilts by Edyta Sitar.  Its been awhile since I worked with Y-seams and I had a great shamrock green batik that I thought would make a lovely background (and its March, so why not make a green quilt). I decided to make the Summer Star Quilt this time around.

Edyta is all about pulling from your stash.  Grabbing random fabric, all color tones and textures - even ones that don't match - and stripping piecing them together to create a whole new 'fabric'.  My first table runner turned out great using this technique so I thought I would give it another try using the shamrock green batik.

First you cut your fabric in varying widths sewing them together. Make sure all your seams are facing in the same direction.

Strips ready to be sewn together

My scrappy stripped 'fabric'.

Next, using the template provided in the book, cut diamonds from your striped 'fabric'.

After cutting all the diamonds, don't throw away your scraps, Edyta gives instructions in the front of the book for how to piece the left over edge triangles into usable pieces.  

After you have cut the diamond (in my case 96!), mark the diamonds with a 1/4" seam allowance on all four points.  This aids in knowing when to stop sewing when creating Y-seams.

Then cut squares and triangles from the background fabric and mark a 1/4" seam allowance on those as well.

Next, sew!  Be sure to stop at the point where the two 1/4" marking meet.  If done properly, the seam should just fold open when flipped right side up.  Even one stitch too many and you will get a puckered look.

Sew the background squares and triangles onto your scrappy star. And voile!  One block done.

Front View

Back View, look at those seams! Yeah :)

I don't know if i love the look of the green batik background against my scrappy star.  So I decided to quilt one block and see if a bit of quilting improved the overall look.

I used Quilters Dream Green batting.  Its a mid loft poly batting made from recycled plastic bottles (think 7-Up and Sprite) lending a pale green hue to the batting.  It quilts up and washed just like Quilters Dream Poly Select.  Having just used Poly Select in another project I wanted to see how the two finished projects compared.

It quilted up beautifully, I love the texture the Dream Green poly batting adds and its green!  Perfect for a St. Patrick's Day quilt.  Still don't know if I'm married to the green batik background.  What do you think?

Interested in giving Quilters Dream Green a try?  Give us a call at 1-888-268-8664 to receive a free sample.