2021 Completed Quilty Projects

Quilty Love Palette Picks – Compass Star Quilt

April 13, 2021

Today I’m sharing another Compass Star quilt! This one is the Quilty Love Palette Picks Compass Star quilt. This bright and happy star quilt is sewn up using my brand new Palette Picks Bundle for Robert Kaufman!

My Quilty Love Palette Picks bundle is a curated fat quarter bundle using 20 different fabrics from the Robert Kaufman basics lines. And this quilt uses all 20 colors! And… it only uses a fat eighth which means if you want to make one using my new bundle you will have enough left over to make a second quilt like Diamond Lanterns which also uses 20 fat eighths.

I really love how this Compass Star quilt pattern showcases the fabrics in this bundle. When I was working on curating this bundle for Robert Kaufman, Compass Star was my go-to for mocking up the colors. I’m pretty sure it looks good in everything..lol.

The Compass Star quilt pattern and the Robert Kaufman Palette Picks Bundle are both available in the Quilty Love Shop.

Quilty Love Palette Picks Compass Star Quilt

Curating this bundle for Robert Kaufman was such a fun project! It was a little stressful for an indecisive person like myself but still so much fun. I pulled in all of my favorites for this colorful bundle. It had to have blues and it had to have pinks. And lately I’ve really loved a touch of coral so I brought that in along with nectarine. And then lastly, some yellows as an accent. All of the pretty brights play so well with the neutrals I brought in also.

And it’s full of texture! I love bringing texture into my quilts whenever possible so I was excited that I could add so many different substrates to this bundle. There are some Essex linens, Manchester, a little bit of sparkle and of course quilting cottons. I’m not afraid to mix all of these together into one quilt and will do that often.

Compass Star Quilt Pattern

Compass Star is a mix and match quilt. Once you make all of your cuts from your fat eighths, you mix and match the pieces for each block. I love the mix and matching step and it doesn’t hurt that it provides some pretty photo ops 😉

Compass Star includes instructions for a baby size, a throw size, a twin size, a queen size and a king size! I have all of the quilt sizes covered for you including all of the bed sizes.

Easy modern star quilt

Compass Star is a good ambitious beginner quilt. It has some fun piecing techniques but also has you trimming down pieces so they end up exactly the size you need. The extra trimming step really helps with precision and more squared up quilt blocks.

White Essex linen background

I used a nice bright white as the background of this Quilty Love Palette Picks Compass Star quilt to really help those stars pop. Since some of the fabrics in the Quilty Love Palette Picks bundle are a little lighter, a bright white works well as a background.

To keep the texture going in this star quilt I used Essex linen in the color white. Not only does it add pretty texture, it adds warmth too! Essex linen quilts end up so much warmer than regular cotton quilts.

I really enjoy quilting with linens and haven’t had any problem with them yet. Linen is more prone to fraying and shrinking so a shorter stitch length is always a good idea. This blog post has some tips and tricks for sewing with linen in your quilts.

Long Arm Quilting

I sent this Compass Star quilt off to Knot and Thread for quilting. I always have Kait choose the quilting design for me and surprise me. She never disappoints and it’s so fun to be surprised when it comes back. I love the panto-graph she chose for this modern star quilt.

Classic Yarn Dyed Essex linen backing

This fun and happy Compass Star quilt is also backed in an Essex linen. So between the white linen background and the backing it’s a nice and heavy quilt. The backing is one of the fabrics from the bundle.

The quilt backing is Essex linen Classic yarn Dyed Woven in the color natural. It has a nice subtle grid design. I love grid fabrics as backings.

Quilt binding

This Quilty Love Palette Picks Compass Star quilt is finished off with a kona Blush Pink binding. Blush pink is also in the Palette Picks bundle. It’s actually one of my favorite colors in the bundle. It’s a really pretty pinky-purpley color.

Pre-washing linen fabrics in quilts

This one will crinkle up nicely with all of that linen! Linen does tend to get extra crinkly and is more prone to shrinking than a quilting cotton. I rarely pre-wash myself but it’s never a bad idea to pre-wash these fabrics. Especially if you don’t want to lose inches off of your quilt. Since I didn’t pre-wash any of these fabrics, I wouldn’t be surprised it it shrinks down about 5-6 inches per side with the first wash.

The first time I made a linen quilt and washed it I was shocked by how much it shrank! Now I just expect that a linen quilt will shrink more than a non linen one.