Ohio Star Quilt & Sawtooth Star Quilt

Years and years ago in a galaxy far, far away, I had belonged to a small group of women quilters who exchanged letters and quilt blocks. Started out as 6 of us and ended up with 9 and today, well I know others have left the group as I had, but not sure how many are left in the group? The idea of the group was we were all members of a larger quilt group and some members had moved away to other states. This was a fun way to connect and write about what was happening in our lives and to share quilt blocks. One person would choose a block for us to all make and tell us what size and colors they wanted and then each time the package would be sent out, we would take blocks from each person and then put in all the blocks we made for the others. Then the next person would have a turn choosing blocks, etc. until we all had chosen a block we wanted. Then it would repeat again with someone choosing a block, etc...

It was fun at first, but as the group grew, the postage costs went up and the wait was longer and longer. I wanted to make my own quilts and not always liked the color choices or pattern that others had chosen to make. After the postage went up to nearly $10 every few months (and this was almost 2 decades ago, so who knows how pricey it is now?), I decided to leave the group. It was crazy how much money was spent on postage alone, and I had to mail the package to the person who lived the farthest away from me, which put the postage up a few dollars higher than the person who was closer to me and her postage cost much less. It would have been even more money to send it priority flat rate. I thought the money I saved from the postage cost would be better spent on buying my own fabric and supplies, so I left the group years ago.

Anyhow, the point to all of this is that these 2 star quilt blocks sat for over 2 decades and was never made into quilt tops, let alone quilts. I wanted to use up my UFO's and got these blocks out to first sew into tops and then I gave it to the woman in my Project Linus group who will quilt them for free as long as I donated them to Project Linus. I had no use for these, and because they are too large for me to quilt without stressing out my shoulders, I gave them to her to quilt. She brought them for show and tell last week.

Project Linus was gifted with a ton of Minky fabric apparently years ago and this is what she uses for the back and fold over binding of the quilt. No batting is needed as it is thick enough and quilting on her longarm machine makes it easy to quilt the Minky. So glad she quilted these and some older children will now get to enjoy the quilts and soft cuddly Minky backing.

So first are the tops I assembled:

Ohio Stars. I played with layouts for a long time so that I could use up all the star blocks that I had. I had 29 blocks (don't know why that number?), so I added that applique stacked star in the bottom right corner to make it an even 30 blocks. I also offset the rows, so I added the colored rectangles. Offsetting helps to add more interest, but also offsets all those seams so they aren't all lined up exactly, which helps have less thickness as well.

Here the quilted quilt. Brown Minky was used the the backing and the folded over binding. She quilted it in a meandering quilt design. She held it up with the rectangle blocks on the sides, as opposed to the top and bottom, but it doesn't matter, as it can go either way.

Closer look at the quilting.

Sawtooth Stars quilt top. I also offset the rows with the rectangles on the sides. I had 30 blocks for this one.

I turned the top on this photo to place the rectangle blocks on the top and bottom. Like the Ohio Star quilt above, to see how it looked this way. It can go either way.

The quilted quilt with the Minky on the back and folded over binding. 

Close up of the quilting.

Both quilts have been donated to Project Linus for 2 children who can cuddle under them as the weather now is getting colder. I am so happy to have these finished and put to good use too!

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