Our Star Adventure quilt pattern was released in May 2023, and since then has been one of our most popular, not only in the shop, but for us to sew as well. As we approached the two year anniversary of its release, we had already sewn TWELVE different samples, using all three design options. So, what better choice for our May 2025 Make of the Month then a lucky number thirteen Star Adventure.
Fableism released word of their Checkmate Checkers and Sun Stripe lines just as we were planning our May MOTM, and the stars aligned. Checkmate Checkers is a 14-piece fat quarter bundle, and Sun Stripe is a 16-piece bundle, giving us 30 FQs total, which is exactly what is required for an Adventurous Assembly Star Adventure in the the large throw size. Finishing at 69" x 83", this would be a generously sized quilt, and we knew the wovens would make it extra cozy.
With 30 FQs to work with, half would become background and scrappy sashing cuts, and half would become star cuts. We divided them roughly into a cool-ish pile and a warm-ish pile, choosing the cooler tones for the stars and the warmer tones for the background and sashing.
Above are the fabrics that became our stars. We decided to follow the Mixed Stars instructions, in which each block uses three different fabrics - a background fabric, a star points fabric, and a star center fabric.
And above are the fabrics that became our backgrounds. The Star Adventure pattern also includes cutting directions for using your background fabrics as scrappy sashing (as opposed to yardage), and we opted to go that route in this sample.
Once we knew which fabrics were going to be background and which were going to be stars, we jumped into cutting. In a Star Adventure, each FQ will get you either two sets of star cuts, two sets of background cuts, or one set of each. Above you can see all of our cuts laid out...now stay with us because things are about to get a little chaotic once we mix them all up:
See? Total chaos. But the best kind of chaos. The kind that magically turns into beauty. It was time to stars sewing some blocks together.
Nothing goes together faster than a Sawtooth Star block. Once you get going on these, it's hard to stop.
The Mixed Stars are a little trickier to batch sew because you can lose track of which points/backgrounds go with which center squares pretty easily. But once we got into a groove on these, we could work three or four at a time and stay pretty organized.
Before long, we had all thirty blocks up on the design wall and ready for their close ups.
And you know we had to take some pretty folded pics before sewing it all together...
Okay, time for the good stuff. As stated above, we used the option to cut scrappy sashing from our background cuts. We roughly lay this out before sewing it all together, mostly to make sure we don't have any background cuts directly touching. It's not an exact science, the point is to look scrappy and random, but we like to control it a little.
Those wovens are so, so good. I really hope the softness and the texture is coming through your computer screens, because it is absolutely tasty.
Backed in Essex Linen Mauve, we sent this one off to Ashley at Hen House Quilting who quilted the Feathered Cloud pantograph over it. We didn't think the texture could get any better, but we were wrong.
This Star Adventure sample is bound in a combination of Bella Betty's Blue and Bella Bunny Hill Pink.
Happy sewing!