Last year I started seeing posts about the Knitted Star quilt from Lo and Behold Stitchery. It’s a lovely quilt, big stars that reminded me so much of the stars on my dad’s ski sweaters from the 60’s. Very Nordic, very winter, very lovely indeed. Last fall the designer announced that she was going to host a quilt along on InstaGram and I decided I was in.

I bought red fat quarters at my local shop Stitched with Love, and distinctly remember a conversation with several of the ladies there. I hadn’t gotten the pattern yet but figured 14 fat quarters should do the trick. I think I ended up needing 18 so I wasn’t too far off, I had the extra 4 in my stash.

I did want to change the single background in the pattern to be scrappy, using a fat quarter for each star block. If I needed 18 red fat quarters, then that meant I needed 18 background fat quarters, but I had those so moving right ahead.

The first block was tricky. There weren’t cutting instructions for doing a single block, other than the wall hanging but that had more cutting than just the block and was cut from yardage. I had to figure out how to cut the needed pieces from a single fat quarter. That first block has got two pieces that are seamed but you can’t really tell that in the finished quilt. That first block took ages and I was worried about getting the whole quilt done in the eight months of the scheduled quilt a long.

I spent two weeks working on blocks and telling myself that I would be just fine making the smaller lap sized quilt. I wasn’t fine with that but I wasn’t sure I was ready to commit to the full 18 blocks needed. Something clicked in the third week and I started cranking out the blocks in a speedy fashion.

This is the first project in my life that I started and completed within the span of the quilt along. I am still amazed that I got it done and quilted and had it on my bed in December for Christmas. I love the bold red and white and I love the subtle shading I got from using different fabrics in the background of each star. I’m very glad I pushed myself to get this one done and get it out where I could see it and enjoy it all in the space of 3 months. Miracles do happen!

Next week I’m going to take a look at what is possibly my favorite quilt I’ve ever made, another swap quilt from the group that swapped the nine patch blocks.