A Carpenter's Star for Evan

Every quilt has a story.....
This year for Evan's birthday, the girls and I went through quite a process to make him a quilt.

A CARPENTER'S STAR << pattern

I had wanted to make him a "Carpenter's Star" since he is, after all, a Finish Carpenter. Using my quilt design software EQ6 (Electronic Quilt), I enlarged the traditional 12" block to become the whole quilt, using large half-square triangles. 

Lauren had been reading a Feng Shui book that she found at the county fair, and we decided to make Evan's quilt using elements of Feng Shui. His symbol for success is "tall wood" (so appropriate for a carpenter) and his colors included greens and browns. We found most of the fabrics at American Quilting, on sale for $3.99 a yard. Then we found the green print at Seasons of Home that looked like aspen bark (how cool is that?).

I cut out the pieces, and each of the girls took a turn sewing a pile of half-sqare triangles. I pressed and trimmed each block, then we laid out the quilt and the girls each put a quadrant of the quilt together. More pinning and pressing, then I added the mitered borders. In two days we had completed the quilt top, just in time for Evan's birthday. He was thrilled with it, and even fell asleep on the couch with it folded up on his chest.... Ohhhhhhh, how sweet!

That's what quilting is all about.  Making a quilt is an emotional process.  They are personal and precious to me.  Thinking about Evan and planning the quilt for him was like infusing the quilt with our love.  It made the final product a creation from the heart, not just something we threw together, though it did go quickly, once we had a vision.  The finished quilt is a conduit of our love for him, and that is something worth far more than anything we could buy.

Patterns for the Carpenter's Star can be found HERE.

Within the next couple of days, I was able to start quilting it. I had originally planned to quilt an overall pattern, but Evan requested a feathered vine and feathered wreaths, which he had seen me do for a client. I used a layer of thin cotton batting, topped with a layer of wool batting, lighter than air, but really makes it a warm quilt, and especially makes the quilting stand out. 

Evan loves his quilt -- the rich colors, the clean lines of the design and the quilting, but especially the fact that it was made just for him by all of his girls!