Don't you just love when all the elements of a quilt just come together? This quilt was a gift to a friend with the absolute most hometown spirit of anyone I know. Our school colors were blue and white, and I just knew she had to have a quilt that spotlighted this particular shade of blue. The quilt world is full of stars. Each state has a few star designs and I had some fun choosing just the right Ohio star to work with.  There are some fascinating stories behind the state stars in quilting and Ohio is no exception. Here's the story of the Ohio star, which I found at Suzy Quilts : " Buckle up your bonnets. This one’s good. Our story today is brought to you by famous quilt scholar Barbara Brackman. Brackman gives us some great Ohio-related Civil War history that we can connect back with the Ohio Star Quilt pattern. "It all starts in the mid 1800s in Oberlin, Ohio. You may have heard of Oberlin College – I had, but I hadn’t heard about the incredible values it was fo

  Quilt makers know that sometimes you don't choose the quilt, the quilt chooses you. In the case of this cardinal quilt, it chose the recipient. I was looking for a quilt pattern for which to make for a friend who loves birds and has created a backyard Shangri-la for them. When I saw this pattern, Cardinals by Margot Languedoc Designs for The Pattern Basket , I knew I had to tackle it. I chose a layer cake of fabrics, Roselyn by Minick & Simpson for Moda . The various shades of red, pops of pink, florals and bold stars added such variety, and made this a really fun quilt to work on.  It was a process, that's for sure. Getting the seams to match up so the tails didn't look like they disjointed was a challenge. There were lots of do-overs.  My design board was starting to cheer up my sewing room! Lap quilts are so warm and inviting. The cardinal is Ohio's state bird. Since my friend lives in Columbus, Ohio, I added this small panel to the back of the quilt. For the

In early 2021, I had only been quilting about a year, but thanks to the pandemic, I had already amassed a pretty big fabric stash. I decided to make an entire quilt without purchasing any new fabric. I was going to use up some of these scraps, doggone it! Make room for some new purchases!  If you're a quilter, you know that's not how it works. No matter how big the quilt, your scraps seem to multiply, despite how much you use. It's a sewing room miracle. But back to the story. I drew up a design of my own, kind of a wonky log cabin block. I wanted to make a rainbow of colors that transitioned through the rainbow in a nice gradual flow.  This is going to be a long-term project, I thought. I'm not going to rush through this like a maniacal sweatshop foreman. Here, I'm going to put all my different colored scraps over here in this big box in the corner and I'll just bring it over to the table when I want to work on it for a few minutes. In the meantime I have all t

Oh, what fun it is to create these adorable forest creatures, knowing that a sweet baby boy will be enjoying it! Quilt designer Elizabeth Hartman makes her Fancy Forest Quilt  in a couple different versions; I chose the smaller baby quilt in blues and it was so rewarding to make. I used Kona solids for the blocks and Essex Yarn Dyed Homespun in taupe for the background and binding.  For backing, I chose one of Jen Kingwell's Winkipop fabrics (which appear to be now out of stock everywhere, so -- whew! -- I'm glad I snagged some of this when I did. It seemed perfect for this quilt. So many different shades of blue - so much fun to work with. Even all scrumbled up, this quilt is adorable! Which is your favorite? Owl   Hedgehog       .                                             Butterfly Fox Bunny .    Thistle 🦆 To learn more about this quilt and Diane's other quilting projects, contact her at diane.fitzpatrick@mac.com. And check out her  Instagram  page.