Super-sized Ohio Star

I've been sewing like a little bit of a mad woman this winter and I have a bit of a backlog of finished quilts to share on the blog. If you follow me on Instagram, you have most likely seen snippets of all of these quilts in various stages - in progress, in top form, quilted, finished, bound, etc. For some reason (um, WINTER), I have not been motivated to get it together long enough to pull out the DSLR and really give these quilts their due. Now that Spring has finally sprung, I am trying to use the nice weather and longer sunlight hours to get them properly photographed and documented here. And, by them, I mean just this one. I have two more that are washed and ready for some time in front of the lens. For now, though, I give you the Super-sized Ohio Star. Yellow glow provided by the late-in-the-day, setting sun. ;)

In January, I watched the first of the Creativebug Block of the Month videos which features Heather Jones and the Ohio Star block. I had never made an Ohio Star quilt so I decided to give it a go. Thirty 12" blocks later, that quilt was finished (and is still waiting to be photographed. Ahem). Around that time, my guild did an exercise about enlarging blocks to different sizes, and since I was really into the Ohio Star, I chose it as my candidate for super-sizing.

I could go into the math for this, but really all you need to know is that the Ohio Star is a nine-patch block made of 5 squares and 4 quarter triangle squares. To make it bigger, I knew I needed a number divisible by 3. I limited myself to fabrics from my stash and, based on yardage I had on hand, settled on a nine block quilt (a nine-patch of nine-patches!) with finished block sizes of 21". Each square in the nine-patch block finishes at 7" (7 1/2'' unfinished), giving a final measurement of 63" square. It's a good throw size, perfect for a cat nap or picnic for two. I like the quilts I make to be usable and I find that anything smaller than around 60" square just isn't as useful as I'd like.

The background fabric is Essex Linen in Ivory and I love, love, love how it feels in a quilt. LOVE IT. The prints are one colorway of Anna Maria Horner's Fibs and Fables line which I paired with bright, cheery solids in hot pink, chartreuse and aqua. I used Labyrinth in aqua for the backing and bound it by machine with Helios in incense. I quilted it with rows of loops in off-white thread and 100% cotton batting on the long arm at Quilted Joy. Between the linen and the cotton batting, it came out of the wash with the best crinkle. Cozy!

This one came together FAST! I know I say that often, but, in this case, big blocks make for less piecing over a greater square footage. I mention this as a reminder to myself. Not everything has to be difficult or tedious to be satisfying to make and to look at. The large squares pack a good punch and have me itching to super-size all the things.