Shifting Crystals

 I'm excited to share Shifting Crystals with you! 

Shifting Crystals by Canuck Quilter Designs
Made with fabric from the Fossil Finesse collection from Island Batik, a division of Lumin Fabrics

It needs another photo shoot.  My supportive husband trekked out with me on a very cold January day so we could take pretty pictures before I shipped the quilt to Island Batik for their April catalog.  By the time we photographed this quilt my fingers were freezing.  I landed flat on my back when I slipped on the ice.  I was ready to be done and rushed through. I think I might manage better pictures now that the quilt is back home and the weather has warmed up.  

The chevrons in this design are strip-pieced, so they are quick and easy to make.  If you've made Leading Edge or Echo Point you know how these work.  The key to making these is the diamond-shaped segments cut from the strip sets.  The pattern illustrates and explains how to measure the diamond segments, but you might also find this tutorial helpful.  Just remember you should NOT be measuring along the top edge of the strip.  Trust me.  Just check out the tutorial and the instructions and email me if you still need help!

What about the stars?  These all all made with stitch-and-flip tecniques, without cutting and sewing individual triangles.  If you find it challenging to trim QST so the seams stay on the diagonal to get the crisp star points in these stars, scroll down to the last part of my QST tutorial to see how I do it. 

I spent some time mulling over pressing directions for these stars.  Press to one side?  Press open? There are some intersections with the potential for a lot of bulk.  In the end, I figured out it was possible to plan the pressing to spin the seams allowances in all those potentially bulky spots, including in the blocks and between blocks.  The pattern walks you through all of it, showing what direction to press and spin so that everything flows together, rather like the seams in the 9-patch in this tutorial.

What colours would you choose to make this quilt?  I'm considering rusts and earth tones for a version with extra columns to fit a queen sized bed.  The pattern is single size, but it would be easy to expand by adding columns and making the top and bottom colour blocks taller.  So many possibilities...

Happy quilting,

Joanne