I am so so so excited to be writing about our newest quilt pattern - Star Adventure! We have made six different samples for this release and we decided to share our Unicorn version first!
The Star Adventure Quilt pattern is my take on "the ultimate sawtooth star" pattern. The Sawtooth Star was the first traditional block I ever learned to make when I started quilting. And it was the first traditional block I designed a quilt pattern around. From the very beginning I have been in love with Sawtooth Stars. I have revisited them over and over again over the last seven years. And each time, I find a new way to play with color and fabric when using them. So out of that love, I wanted to provide as many options as possible for how to sew Sawtooth Stars.
Star Adventure includes SEVEN sizes!
Small Throw 55" x 55"
Medium Throw 55" x 69"
Large Square Throw 69" x 69"
Large Throw 69" x 83"
Double 83" x 97"
Queen 97" x 111"
King 111" x 111"
There are two different assembly journeys you can take on your Star Adventure:
The Adventurous Assembly journey is based on choosing what type of material cuts you want to use - F8s, FQs, 1/4 yards or yardage. Then you decide how you want your final star blocks to look - Solid Stars, Mixed Up Stars or Scrappy Stars.
The Alternating Assembly journey plays with high contrast, choosing material cuts based on the ability to group them into Dark and Light fabrics, following more specific guidelines to create the alternating look!
No matter which path you choose, you have the creative power to make a beautiful, bold, Star Adventure quilt!
So for our Unicorn sample, this sample makes a Large Throw at 69" x 83" using the Adventurous Assembly. We are using (30) F8s in a beautiful unicorn gradient of color, with yardage for the background and sashing. Also, this one uses the Solid Star style. Let's get to it!
One single F8 gets you cuts for one Star or Background in a block. So this is a really fun way to use a lot of fabrics or colors at once. A lot of fabric lines come with a F8 precut option. These can be fun because usually the fabric already looks great together so takes the guessing game out of the equation. For this, I wanted to use a combination of solids and Ruby Star Society basics.
I thought it would be fun to not use a white as the background but another soft color. We ended up going with Pale Pink by Bella solids. It looks very similar to Kona Shell. I love how it reads as a neutral without feeling stark.
I pressed all of my F8s and then cut 2 at a time. It just helped speed up the process a bit. And then cutting the background yardage was quick and fast as well. The stack on the top left is what it left from the F8s, so we use over half of the F8 but you still have some scraps left for future projects.
It is up to you if you want to work block by block when sewing the Solid Star style or if you want to batch sew. I chose block by block because it seemed more satisfying at the time.
I snapped some photos of my favorite blocks but seeing them all together was really fun. Love this unicorn rainbow vibe.
Once all 30 blocks were done, it was time to arrange them in order on our design wall (just batting hanging by clips). We did move a few around until we felt we had a smooth diagonal gradient.
The Star Adventure pattern uses sashing between each block and in between the rows. You can use either the same color as the background fabric of the blocks to make it blend and help the stars "float" in the quilt a bit. Or you can choose a contrast fabric to frame them. Also, if using FQs, you can cut extra strips from the background FQs to get scrappy sashing. But, because we were using F8s, we decided to use yardage that was the same color as the fabric in the background of the blocks.
This top turned out so beautiful. It is one of my more colorful quilts and I love it!
I saw a new to me pantograph on Instagram right when I was sending this off for quilting and immediately sent it to Emily of So Sunny Quilts. It is called Cookie Cutter by Mistletoe Quilting. I decided I want to play up the fun rainbow vibes and chose neon green thread. It looks AMAZING.
We bound this Unicorn Star Adventure in Kona Acid Lime. It pairs perfectly with the thread and is a fun frame to the quilt.
We backed the quilt in a wide back by Ruby Star Society that we had on hand. It's a bright blue floral print and it pairs perfectly with the fun of the top!
We bought a new camera recently and took all of our own photos in house. It has been fun to shoot on a nicer camera but also I took SO MANY PHOTOS. I have a terrible time of paring down what images to keep and what to delete. We ended up for over 300 finished quilt photos of this single quilt.
There are more photos. I just couldn't get enough of these colors and the quilting.
And the relief I feel of getting this pattern out of my head and into the world, is immense. You can just see it in my face. Pure joy that it's out there!
We did a little picnic set up and now I want to take this quilt outside and have some yummy food and cold drinks. I am really so excited to see what people make with this pattern.
I have more photos but at some point I gotta call it a day.
This top turned out so beautiful. It is one of my more colorful quilts and I love it!
