From Janet Wickell,
Your Guide to Quilting.
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Please Rescue this Ugly Little Star Quilt

This small quilt is called What Was I Thinking for obvious reasons. Muddled divisions between patches, for one. And the quilt's color combination -- let's just say it's interesting. The outer border is too narrow. It's bad enough that I designed it (I use the "d" word loosely here), but I actually finished the quilt. I quilted it. I bound it. I put a sleeve on the back of it. What was I thinking?

Technically the quilt is okay. The seams match and points are pretty good -- it's just ugly. But, I think the pattern has lots of potential if you choose colors and color values more wisely than I did. My quilt would have turned out much better if only I hadn't used that busy pink print in the Snowballs. That one change would make a world of difference.

So here's a challenge. Rescue this ugly quilt and use my quilt as an example of what not to do. Choose fabrics with better contrast. Avoid using so many busy prints. Make that outer border a little wider. I'm switching off to Christmas colors for the illustrations, so that I can get this quilt out of my head.

Block Size: 10" finished

Quilt Size: 41-1/2" square

Star Block Quilting Fabrics

• Light for background: 3/4 yard

• Medium for squares between star tips: 3/16 yard

• Medium dark for nine patch: 1/4 yard

• Dark warm for star tips: 1/4 yard

Snowball Block Quilting Fabrics

• Medium light for centers: 1/3 yard

• Medium dark for corners

Other Materials

• Dark inner border: 1/3 yard

• Medium outer border: 5/8 yard

• Backing: 1-1/4 yard

• Binding: 178 running inches

• Batting: 43" x 43" piece thin batting