January is a Great Time to Sew

I saw this quilt sewn up in a little quilt shop in upper Michigan. We always stop there on our trips to Minnesota to visit our family. I like quilts that are made from fat quarters. They allow me to take my time buying little bits of fabric over time instead of spending a lot of money all at once.

When I first saw the border fabric in our local quilt shop, I bought enough for the outside of a quilt. It was the color I wanted for my bedroom and my husband has been urging me to make a quilt for our bed. After seeing this Morning Glory pattern, I started to buy fat quarters that coordinated with it. The pattern was free on the Moda fabrics web site. Just go to www.modafabrics.com and click on the free patterns option. Scroll to the bottom of the page and choose the archived patterns. That’s where the Morning Glory pattern is. If you choose to make this pattern, I would recommend being careful to choose only medium and dark prints; I think some of my florals were too light to give a good contrast to the stars. When putting my squares together, I did have to completely discard some of my fabrics for this reason. I think this would look nice with creamy stars and darker colors as well. That would certainly give more contrast. It is a very easy pattern. All the points on the stars are time consuming but not difficult. I had enough left-over fabrics that I cut squares for a lap top quilt from the scraps. I will post a picture of that when I finish it. I love getting a bonus quilt from scraps!

We read in an old book that at one time girls were expected to have a dozen quilts made before they were married. We laugh about that a lot; I guess it was before heat when you used multiple quilts on each bed. Do you realize how many children you would have to have before you could put twelve quilts to use in today’s world? Nevertheless, our girls have attempted to build up a store of homemade quilts for their homes. Two summers ago I was thrilled to visit a quilt museum in Virginia. Most of their displayed quilts were from the mid-1800’s. I was tickled when I saw two matching quilts made by sisters. Each quilt had an embroidered number on the back, as the girls were keeping careful count of their completed projects, attempting to get their dozen quilts needed before marriage. I guess it was really true.