The Chubby Stars Quilt Along

Red, white, black, and gray always go together. -Frank Chimero


I have quilt projects to last me the next five years. At least. All of them are quilt projects that I love and intend to finish. But sometimes things come together in such a way that it can only be mean one thing. Another quilt project. Here's how it happened this time.

My sweet friend, Wanda, has been cleaning out her stash. She sent me a box full of goodies and told me to do what I like with them. There were quite a few fabric treasures in there {some of which will end up as bloggy giveaways -- not because they aren't great, but because I'm just one girl with a million projects already and because want to share the love}. There was one piece of fabric in particular that really caught my eye. I knew it needed an extra special project to show it off. I wondered if it would be pretty in another snowball quilt. I'll be finished with my second snowball quilt along quilt eventually {that seems to be the only project that gets any sort of regular attention} and I've been thinking of ways to continue the snowball fun. The fabric went in the definitely keeping pile and thoughts of different things I could do with it settled in the to be arranged file in the back of my mind.

This weekend I was introduced to Tracey of traceyjay quilts. I enjoyed her blog immensely. While I was there, I noticed that she was just starting a quilt along. I was really impressed by her thoroughness. She'd compiled a chart of yardage needed for different quilt sizes and made up a little layout sheet for coloring in. And she already had a pretty sample worked up. But, I said to myself, I don't need another project. I left her blog, a new follower, and then went about my business. Somewhere between lunch and laundry, Tracey's Chubby Stars quilt along met up with that fabulous floral fabric Wanda sent me and an idea was born.

I pulled the fabric, threw it in to wash and had it pressed and cut before bedtime. I only had about ¾ of a yard to work with, so I decided to make my quilt a little smaller than even the smallest of quilts Tracey included on her chart. I'm going with a 5 x 7 layout, which is 40" x 56" before borders. Even reducing the size, I don't have quite enough fabric for all of the snowball blocks. I decided that I could live with that because I didn't want to make the quilt any smaller than 5 x 7.

While I was planning this project out in my head, I decided to use Kona Cottons in Coal and Ash for the star points and background in the chain blocks. I happen to have a bit of Kona in Coal on hand, so I put it with the floral fabric, but it was off. The grey in the leaves is a khakishh-grey. I also noticed that there are the palest of yellow in the accent flowers. So, I am hoping that I can find a nice khaki grey for the star points and a pretty pale yellow for the background. I've got enough of the floral fabric to do roughly a third of the chain pieces and I hope to find a couple of pretty florals in red and yellow to fill in the empty snowball blocks and finish off the chains.

I used Tracey's coloring sheet and fiddled around with the floral blocks. I don't know if I'm set on this layout. I'll definitely play with it when I get to my blocks. In any case, this is definitely a quilt I'm going to love.