Grandma’s Star Finished

I spent the last couple of days quilting my Grandma’s Star quilt and happy report it is now done!   This quilt block was made using the Grandma’s Star quilting templates from Matilda’s Own.  Desley sent the templates in our last gift exchange and after some encouragement from her to give them a try I started to piece a block.   The Y seams were a challenge but once I finished the first block they soon became addicting and I ended up with 12 blocks .  Warning, this post has a lot of pictures!  :)

I was struggling with the quilting designs so wrote a post on the MQR forum asking from some design help. Received some wonderful suggestions but it was Donna’s drawing of how to quilt the blocks that got me headed in the right direction.  She suggested the pebbles in the triangles and in the center of the star, as well as the straight lines in the background of each block.  From there I decided to put rays in the setting triangles, SID all the blocks and added a Angela Walter’s Pebble/Swirl design in the outer border to add a softer element to the design and tie into the pebbles that are in the blocks.

  The quilt is made with all batik fabrics, Dream Blend batting and Invisifil white thread.  The backing is a Kona White and I love how the quilting shows up on the back!

I have to say that this is the first time I tried the pebble design between the two lines and it is much harder than it looks.   I usually just pebble as background fill so trying to keep them a consistent size and between the lines was a real challenge.   I’m glad I tried this first one on my own quilt or I would have been doing a lot of picking.  They improved as I worked on the quilt but I now have a greater appreciation for quilters that use this design often.