Starburst Quilt (Finished and Featured)

I am so excited to finally be able to share this quilt with you - I made it midway through last  year, and it's one of my all-time favorite finishes, so I've been very impatiently waiting for it to be published so I can share it! It appears in Quilters Companion No. 71, which came out yesterday.

Ever since making this quilt, I'd been wanting to make another quilt using the same block design, but using colours that are more 'me'. It's essentially made using the traditional Dutch Rose block (or Carpenters Star), but I've added an extra star in the centre, to give the block a bit more interest.

I don't think it's any great secret that I'm a massive fan of Tula Pink's designs, and this quilt is sort of an ode to Tula - all the print fabrics are from her collections (mostly from a fat eighth bundle of Fox Fields, but with a few pieces from Nightshade, The Birds and the Bees and Neptune thrown in) and I love how they work so beautifully together. It was such a fun quilt to put together, and I'm planning on making another (bigger version) using this pattern - I just need to decide what fabric to use :o)

I quilted it using Aurifil 50 wt in various colours - threads from Tula Pink's Aurifil collection for the coloured fabrics, and soft white (2021) in all the background. I quilted fairly large, loose designs on this quilt, so it is beautifully drapey but still has lots of texture. I wanted to accentuate the sense of the stars exploding outward with straight line quilting within the stars, and then contrast that with the curvy designs in the rest of the background. I really like this combination of quilting, and I'm finding I'm using it more and more on my quilts.

This quilt finishes at 64" square, so it's the perfect size for snuggling under on the couch (and despite it being summer here, there have been many snuggling opportunities in the last few months!)

The back is one of my favorite Tula prints, with some coordinating prints down each side to bring it up to size. I love the back almost as much as the front :o)

I am looking for testers for this pattern if anyone is interested - it will be available in two sizes (lap and queen), so if you'd like to test for me please let me know :o) I'll be teaching this block as a class at Frangipani Fabrics later this year, too.

xx Jess