I’m super-excited to be the featured designer in Quilty Box for the month of March, which happens to also be National Quilting Month!
For those of you wondering, Quilty Box is a subscription-based box of quilting goodies that arrives directly to your door each month, with an option to choose from a ‘Classic’ subscription or one that focuses on paper piecing.
For the March box, I’ve designed two patterns to go with the Northern Lights collection, along with a paper piecing pattern by Quilty Box, giving you a total of three patterns to try. The first pattern, Olivia’s Star is named after my sweet youngest daughter, Olivia. There is a pattern I created awhile back called Madison’s Star, after my oldest daughter, and Olivia’s Star is a miniature version with different piecing instructions and more precision needed.
The Birth of Olivia’s Star
Mother’s Day is usually the time when my kids assist me with quilting, and on one occasion Madison helped me to create the pattern for Madison’s Star – so it only seemed right to name it after her! Since then, Olivia has been bugging me to create and name a ‘cooler’ pattern after her, of course! This led to the creation of the gorgeous ‘Olivia’s Star’ pattern, which I’m certain you will love.
I made it in a way to reflect my sweet daughter quite a bit. Olivia is Autistic, and just as she sees life through a different lens and requires patience to accomplish things, Olivia’s Star is a dynamic pattern that requires some precision to be pieced together. The directions are laid out in a way to help keep everything in order, easily transitioning you from one step to the next. The only seam you need to match up is the center in each diamond!
This Quilty Box comes with a couple of surprises too! The first is an exciting acrylic tool, which makes it easier to achieve stunning results every time! The second is another great gadget that I just love to use when choosing fabrics for quilt projects. This one will help you choose setting and border batiks to go with your star, allowing you to have the same look I created, or something that best suits your aesthetic.
As for the other projects featured in the box – I created a simpler version of Olivia’s Star, which uses less piecing requirements while still showcasing dynamic results using the same set of fat quarters included in the box.
Quilty Box designed the third project, which uses the 5” squares of the entire collection included in the box, to give you a taste of how these fabrics work together.
The dramatic contrast of colors in this collection were driven by the stunning shades found in the Northern Lights against a clear night sky. If you don’t know what I mean, you can check out the full Northern Lights Collection HERE, and pick up your March Quilty Box HERE while you still can.
Does Quilty Box excite you? Place a one-time box order for the Classic or EPP version of the March box if you’d like to give it a try. While on our website, don’t forget to check out the Banyan Batiks Product Finder, found on the right side of any collection, to locate a quilt shop that carries this collection. You’ll want to complete the star with something from Northern Lights, and hopefully use it in another project as well! Be sure to follow Banyan Batiks on Instagram and Facebook, and share your projects with us using the hashtag #BanyanBatiks so that I can see it!