And so it begins - Star of Bethlehem

This is not meant to be unkind toward the great ladies at Land’s End who put their time and effort into creating this project, but after sewing for many years and quilting for quite a few, I have to say the instructions for this pattern are a challenge to follow. Some templates are not exactly the correct sizes and that makes me a bit nervous. Therefore I have decided to start with the trickiest blocks to be sure they come out to the prescribed 15.5” unfinished measurement.

This means I have begun with the block they call Star of Bethlehem. And according to Judy Rehmel’s “The Quilt I.D. Book,” they are correct.

Now for fabric choices. I plan to make this quilt a bit scrappy. A pallette of eight fabrics is just not gonna cut it in 2009. Some will come from my stash, some from Aunt Donna scraps, and larger pieces, such as borders and setting squares will have to be purchased. In fact, I’ve already found two of the three borders and most of the setting square fabrics.

Back in the late 80’s the choice of Christmas fabrics was extremely limited. Most of them were small prints and I believe, at one time, I had just about all of them for use in my crafting ventures. Of all the fabrics used in the original cover quilt, the green plaid is the only one I had. And, yes, I still have a piece in my stash.

So as an homage to the original, I have used the printed green plaid in this first block. It is only proper to place it just as they did back in 1987.

After encountering 32 Y seams in this one block alone, maybe I have discovered why I never made this quilt.

One down, eleven to go.