Some of our best ideas start in a pile of cardboard.
Mitzie and I were unloading a big shipment from Art Gallery Fabrics. We try to keep every color in stock, but between orders, Color Flow Retreats, and quilt shows, the shelves run thin. And the boxes always seem to land at once. I was pulling bolts and logging them into the computer. Mitzie was laying them side by side. Then she pulled a few more off the shelves. By the time the boxes were empty, we had the start of three new bundles.
Bundle 39 is my favorite. It’s packed with this year’s new colors and leans hard toward the primaries. Every one of them is happy. These solids don’t just sit there. They pop.
We paired it with Cosmic Sass, still a shop favorite for good reason. The lines and the stars fight for your attention. The quilt holds together and pulls your eye away at the same time. Kelly calls it the magic eye quilt because the stars can be so hard to see.
Learning the hard way
I’m still new at this, so Cosmic Sass looked like a good place to learn. Mitzie made a companion course for it in the Hive. It starts with the Mitzie Method for pressing and cutting, then walks you through the whole quilt.
I should have finished the course before I started cutting. I cut three fat quarters wrong. Lucky for me, I work in a fabric store. You might not. Watch the video.
The half-square triangles went fine, but I wish I’d used the scant quarter-inch foot. I had enough seam allowance. Still, on a couple of triangles I was trimming down to a few brave threads.
Where a bundle earns its keep
Next, the 4½" strips go onto the triangle sets. This is where a bundle pays for itself. Grab a handful of strips and lay them beside the triangles. Every color plays nice with every other color, so you only need two rules. Don’t repeat a color too often. Don’t match the strip to the triangle.
I didn’t read the pattern closely the first time, and I wasn’t consistent in how I sewed the strips on. I made one star to check. It didn’t look right.
Well. That’s what seam rippers are for. I read the pattern again and went back to work.
Look for the bow ties
From across the room, I could see the pattern on the design wall. But up close, the stars disappeared. I was sure I’d sewn a row in upside down.
Then I remembered a trick from our last retreat: look for the bow ties. The corners of the stars make little bow ties where the blocks meet. If two blocks of the same color are touching, you’re right. If not, stop and flip.
It sounded silly until I tried it. Now I can’t stop seeing them.
Finishing up
We quilted this one the way we quilt all our Jittery Wings quilts: backing, spray basting, and straight lines half an inch apart on our Janome.
Then Mitzie used it in a Hive+ workshop on squaring up a quilt. We bound it in her favorite stripy fabric.
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