I so appreciate your suggestions about possible background colors for my red, red, red economy stars quilt!

Jamie suggested that I try a shade of orange for the background. I was already planning to experiment with peach, which is part-orange, part-pink.

I do love how the peach looks with the red. But that’s no surprise, since I love with peach with everything it seems. Still, I do think that the peach makes the red feel even warmer. I like how it connects with creamy neutrals.

Madie, Lea and Karen suggested I try aqua with the red:

Aqua and red are indeed a gorgeous combo, but adding aqua doesn’t hit the spot this time. In fact, it helps me realize that I want to eliminate all grey tones from my quilt, along with the black, which I’d ruled out earlier.

Lavender was enthusiastically suggested by Laura Jo, which totally took me by surprise. I would not have thought of that! Let’s pop a few warm purples into the mock-up to see how that works.

I like it! It is intriguing and vaguely royal. So, it’s decided: the background will be a combination of white, cream, peach and lavender shades. I can’t totally visualize how that will look, but that’s part of the fun. It’s an adventure!

Sponsor of the Week

The Confident Stitch

A new We Quilt This City collection will be released on August 24th! What a lovely collection of autumnal fabrics!

For $15, subscribers will receive a 5.5" bundle of 15 squares of fabric, plus a 13" X 18" blender. Use the bundle and included pattern to make this table runner. Or purchase an expansion kit to make the lovely ‘Tis Autumn Irish Chain Quilt (pattern also included!). Available only in the USA.

So, here are my first blocks, done up in white/cream background colors while I get myself oriented.

Now you can see how my Economy Stars are formed. I’m sewing economy blocks that sit between the stars to create star points. With this sort of patchwork, the background color must contrast with the star color so that the stars are discernable. That’s why I couldn’t use a red background.

I’m only moderately satisfied with my first batch of stars. It’s too busy, I think. It will be better to use more plains and less patterns in my background fabrics. Also, even the little bit of black in these prints is bothering me. I’ll let them stay, but avoid them going forward.

What I won’t keep is the top left star in the cream/red number fabric. It’s a cool print, but it just doesn’t read well as a star. This happens because the print has too much internal contrast (red/cream), shares the same color as the background (cream) and is so large scale that it gets lost. I did some quilt surgery to remove the cream/red number fabric - annoying, but worth it.

So, onwards!

Now I am arranging all my already-cut red star centers in a grid on my design wall. I’ve leaving space between for background squares and star points.

I often work like this when I’m cutting. I prefer to see how many more squares I need and which fabrics I’ve already used, rather than counting stacks of cut fabrics.

I’ll be cutting the rest of my red stars from yardage since I’ve already worked though my red scraps. That feels good.

Here goes!