I think the best pairing ever may be a scrappy quilt + the classic black and white color combo. And today, I bring you this pairing in our Orchard Star Quilt pattern.
Orchard Star is my take on a strip pieced courthouse step block and an offset sawtooth star to create this fun modern design. The pattern includes six sizes in two main design options - Modern Solid and a Six Color version. Within each design option, you can dive into your stash and make a scrappy version instead of using the calculated yardage. Orchard Star has lots of charts to make working scrappy easy!
I have a pretty healthy personal fabric stash that I love to dig into a few times a year. And for this, I KNEW I wanted to use my collection of black fabric but toyed around with using a creamy natural solid, a bright white, or a medium soft blue for the other main color.
Also, before deciding on which background color I wanted to use, I played with which placement the Black fabrics and the other fabric would be in the Modern Solid design. Did I want the black fabrics to be the Color 1 position which contains the stars or the background fabric which is, you guessed it, the background.
In the end I decided I wanted the quilt to look scrappy in the Color 1 position and have solid yardage for the background fabric. If I went with the black as the background fabric, it would still look amazing but it would also mean lots of long stripes of fabric in different fabrics, not just squares and the stars. I was thinking it may feel a little too chaotic that way.
And so I decided on black stars and the creamy natural linen for the background fabric.
The other thing I decided was that the center square of every Courthouse Steps block would be some version of a black and white gingham or grid print to add just a touch of consistency to the quilt top.
Besides deciding the centers being made by ginghams or grid prints, we pulled fabrics we loved from our stash, took the total number of squares needed and divided it by number of fabrics to get how many squares to cut from each one. It wasn't a perfect equation but just imagine you need (300) squares, and you have 30 fabric scraps, then try for (10) squares per fabric. Get it?
Sewing up these blocks were quick and fun. We just worked block by block and used whatever squares we wanted within each block. And before we knew it, we had all the blocks finished!
The Sawtooth Star blocks turned out so fun. I did intentionally have to pick the 3 fabrics I wanted use for the top row of stars as they are constructed a little different than the rest of the stars. But overall, it was again just going with the flow and making the required number of stars without overthinking fabric placement.
Once the blocks were done, it was time to lay them out on our design wall. Besides following the pattern for where certain blocks need to be, we focused on making sure where the blocks meet, no fabrics repeated RIGHT next to each other. We moved things around a bit, changed up where some stars were positioned but quickly found a final placement we loved.
Sewing these blocks into rows is quick and you press the seams opposite directions from the row above or below it so that the block seams nest. And due to our pressing instructions throughout the quilt top, most of the seams should nest.
Each star stands out on it's own yet blends together beautifully. I love the metallic pops of gold throughout the quilt top and the tiny pops of bright colors as well. The linen fabric is Essex Linen Champagne and adds a lovely weight and texture to the overall feel.
Alysson and I both said this is one of our favorite scrappy quilts ever. There is something so satisfying working scrappy, using fabrics you used in other makes, fabrics you've saved and fabrics you totally forgot you had. I really enjoyed sewing this one together.
This quilt top sat around for a bit because we were cranking out so many quilt tops during this time. Here is what my upper railing looked like in the summer.
We are still working our way through finishing all the quilt tops, getting them photographed and blogged. But boy does that photo make me happy.
I decided to back this quilt in a bright yellow calico print for an unexpected surprise. And then I added a TCJ quilt block label to it and bound it in a cute black floral print.
Oh did I forget to mention we did NEON pink thread? IT IS SO GOOD. I love love love her.
Emily of So Sunny Quilts did this quilting for us and we choose the Starry Realm for the pantograph. The design has this fun echo effect to it with lines at an angle but then has these pops of twinkle design. It is the best.
Now, which color combo should I do next for another Scrappy Orchard Star? It was too fun to not consider making a different version.