With the beginning of a new year, it’s time for a recap of last year’s projects!
2008 started out with a quilt for Mikey (my cousin-in-law’s son), who turned 8 years old in August. Since Mikey was born before I was sewing blankets and quilts for new babies of friends and family, he was over-due for his quilt.
The first step was to choose the pattern — something fun that a boy would like. I went with the traditional Friendship Star. Then there was choosing the fabric. The fabric most definitely could not be girly (no flowers, no kitties, nothing cute). I found a blue print with a cool outer-space vibe, and the same print in green that has kind of a lizard-y effect. I ran my fabric selections past someone who was an 8-year-old boy at one time (a little while back) (thanks, Brent!).
This was a fun and easy block pattern to sew. It’s all squares except for the half-square triangles that form the points of the stars.
The next big step was the quilting. This was my first all-hand-quilted project so it took a while. It was nice to see that it became easier, and I became faster at it, and by the time I finished I actually was enjoying it! Nice to advance to that, past the determined I can do this! mind-set of the beginner.
The blocks containing the stars were quilted around the outside of each star, and the other squares were quilted with an X from corner to corner (for an overall diagonal pattern).
The final size is approximately 54 x 72 inches.