Daisy Star Quilt - Holly Clarke Design

23 Feb Daisy Star Quilt

Posted at 17:33h in Pattern, Quilt by admin_holly 0 Comments

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I love starting off the new year with a blank to-do list – it gives me a great chance to play around with new ideas and see where the creative process takes me. This January I started thinking about orange peel quilts and thinking about how I can turn that classic motif into something new and fresh.

After much trial and error, I came up with the idea of using “orange peel” curves within a hexagon background creating a daisy shaped design. And to my delight, a little star emerged in the centre!

I drafted up some templates and played around with some test blocks until I was satisfied with the shape of the petals, and the construction of the block. Then… time to cut into the GOOD fabric.

Pretty fabric!

For this quilt I used the exquisite fat quarter bundle of the Hibiscus collection by Simple Simon & Co. for Riley Blake Designs. As soon as I laid my eyes on these prints I fell in love with the tropical florals in deep shades of green and mint, blush pink, and golden citron. And OMG, alpacas! Those little faces make me smile every time I look at them. For my background fabric I used Confetti Cottons in Riley White.

getting started and layout decisions

I decided on a quilt layout that included 18 daisies made up of 6 different prints each in 3 colour ways. (I added a few coordinating Confetti Cotton Solids and Texture to fill out my palette.) After cutting out all my petals and background pieces, I got to the boring part … pinning! There’s no way around it, you need to pin these curves to make them fit the seams properly. So, I plopped in front of the TV and got to work pinning all of my petals to the background pieces.

Here are some WIP photos as I was trying to decide on my petal layouts:

Here’s a brief overview of my process to make each block…

Finishing touches

I deliberated for a while over how to lay out my 18 blocks. I ultimately decided on grouping the green blocks together in the centre since they are quite a bit darker in value to the gold and pink blocks. The dark green draws your eye in more so I didn’t want to fight with that, but rather use it as a feature. I quilted straight even lines, spaced about 1.75″ apart to keep it simple and not detract from all the playful movement in the daisies.

I made all 18 blocks and then “set” them with some plain white triangles for a staggered layout. I worked in diagonal “rows” so I didn’t have to sew any Y‑seams. 🙂

Once my quilt top was complete, I was torn about what to use for the binding. Since I had left-over fabric from each of the fat quarters I used in the quilt, I decided to use one strip of each of the prints for my binding, giving it a fun scrappy look.

My finished Daisy Star quilt

A tropical photo shoot

I took my tropical quilt to Toucan Ridge, a tropical House at our local zoo, for a photo shoot among the lush foliage, while tropical birds and turtles watched on. The visit to this warm, green sanctuary did my soul a world of good in the midst of the exceptionally cold and snowy winter we’ve been having this year.