HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Out with the old, in with the new. Or, in my case, celebrate finishing this OLD quilt top I began designing almost 30 years ago, so OLD but now it feels really NEW:

Star of Texas, about 72" square

This has been on my bucket list for all these years. Read more about it here:  Star of Texas

Here are my two Game On! quilts, both through month 7, now all I have to do is write the blogs for each month. It is not too late for you to start--this is SO MUCH FUN:

                                                        

Now that I am pretty far along on Game On! I can concentrate on a few more projects I really want to complete this year.

My Old Italian Block Lifetime Quilt is the next top to make:

All 290 of the 3" blocks are done--now it's on to the design wall this week

Quilting needs to be done on Diamond Jubilee:

And soon I will start two online courses on ruler quilting with these two quilts:

panel for Angela Walters class on Arcs and Curves

Quilt of Valor to use for Natalia Bonner's class on 99 strip designs

There is always more to create and I have to come up with my NEXT Lifetime/Leader-Ender quilt project. I have a few ideas. Stay tuned.

Since I am home until mid-March I am determined to get as much done as possible. 

My words for 2026 are "RENEW" and "REBUILD". I don't usually pick a word but was challenged to do so by a friend. These seemed to ring true for 2026.

Do you pick a "word of the year"? 

What do you plan to achieve in 2026? Just keep going, that's my plan.

Happy New Year to all!

Let's quilt.

Barbara

BUCKET LIST QUILT # 3

My "BUCKET LIST" of quilts I still plan to make includes a few I started years ago. This is one of those,  STAR OF TEXAS. 

I am enamored of all things TEXAS, I was probably meant to live there, but for now I want a "TEXAS" quilt:

STAR OF TEXAS was started at least 25 years ago when I saw a tiny little image in a magazine of the center square made up of many small five-pointed stars. Using graph paper and a calculator, I drafted the center using 64th's of a inch. Yes, crazy, I know, but I am a numbers person and it was fun. 

I played around with Electric Quilt--whichever early version I had then, long gone now, and got the center made. The off-white background was what I had on hand and seemed the best choice at the time.

Once the red border was added I knew the yellow-ish cream muslin center fabric was wrong. And I didn't know what I wanted to do next so I packed it away, with a big bundle of red, white, blue and gold fabrics and left it. 

About 10 years ago I tackled it again, taking off  the red borders and carefully removing the background fabric. I had created full-size paper templates of the 5 background shapes so it wasn't too hard to cut new ones and replace them with white Grunge--much better!  

Now I had this. NOTE: the red borders are just on the design wall for inspiration--they haven't been sewn in place yet. I expect to cut them down a bit:

Now that I have looked at it a few times  I know what to do next. Playing with EQ 8 I came up with this design. I did not take the time to draw the actual center star as it is made--this simply allows me to get right to playing with border ideas:

62" square

But wait. What if I want it larger? Here is another possibility:

71.5" square

For now, I will make the red and blue stars for the borders since they are definitely going to be used. They are 5" standing with the star center point at the top but 7" if I set them on point as shown in these border ideas. Does it make a difference to Texans if the star is sideways?

This one has moved up to the top of the list of quilts to make/finish.

Let's quilt,

Barbara