We've made it to the last Orchard Stars Quilt from our release!! Today I am sharing the FIRST Orchard Stars Quilt I made, a scrappy baby one. But before we dig in, we have shared the following other quilts from our Orchard Stars release:
Okay, onto the Scrappy Baby quilt! So before I jumped into writing the entire Orchard Stars pattern, I wanted to make a baby size quilt using scraps. This is my typical process - come up with new idea, play with design options, make a sample quilt (I am incredibly visual), and if I hope to include scrappy instructions, I make that one first. Some designs are hard to make look "good" in scraps and I always want to try it myself before I promote and tell others to do it.
So for this baby quilt, I made a mock up in a color way that also isn't typical Meghan. It is another challenge I give myself when making a new design - I really want to experiment and see if I like the design in a color way that I normally wouldn't gravitate towards. If I like it, then I think the design will stand up to all kinds of palettes and aesthetics. If I don't like it, then I need to keep adjusting my design so it is more universal to all who want to make it.
This is the mock up I used as my basis for the scrappy quilt. I knew I would use a solid background color and went with this deep blue that leans towards purple. Then I knew that the rest of the four colors, Color 1 - 4 which are the Courthouse Steps squares and Color 5 which are the star would be made from all my personal stash and scraps.
I forgot to take a photo of my fabric pull but I did take photos of all my pieces cut before I started sewing.
For this scrappy quilt, I decided to keep the scraps within each Color similar in tone. So for all the Color 1 pieces, I made sure were all light blushes, and Color 2 are all corals, Color 3 more like burnt oranges and Color 4 are peaches. And then all the stars are some version of pinky purples.
I started with the stars first and then jumped right into finishing out the Courthouse Steps blocks. Because it's a baby size, it finishes up so quickly!
Once all the blocks were finished, it was just sewing up the rows and boom, we have a quilt top!
I sent this baby quilt off to Emily of So Sunny Quilts and we used this beautiful starry twinkle pantograph called Glimmer. I already can't wait to use it again.
We backed this in a Speckled Wideback in black and then I did a binding of two different fabrics - a light purple and a gingham. I liked the idea of making it appear scrappy without it being used from scraps.
I am happy with how this quilt turned out. It is really easy to work with scraps and stash with Orchard Stars.
