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Scraps of Wisdom

STARS ALL AROUND
Free Pattern Introduction

by Eleanor Burns, Quilt in a Day

The art of quilt making dates back many centuries and is still actively pursued today. The thought of women stitching scraps of fabric together to form beautiful quilts and expressing their creativity inspires me. My love affair with quilting has spanned over 30 years and I have always treasured the traditional patterns made by our grandmothers and great grandmothers. My passion is to study traditional patterns and devise methods to make them easier to piece.

Most people know that I started in the quilting business with my first book Make a Quilt in a Day – Log Cabin Pattern, way back in 1978. I had discovered that I could “assembly-line sew” strips of fabric and speed up the patchwork making process. Since that first book, I have tackled many traditional patterns and written over 90 books to teach my techniques.

Last year, the 1940’s grabbed my attention and I began researching that era. Since I was born in 1945, the decade has a lot of meaning to me. Using bits of history, my goal was to represent the War Years in a quilt and each block of my sampler would have significance of that time. It was so much fun to tell the story of America during the 1940’s through quilt blocks such as Mr. Roosevelt’s Tie, Stars and Stripes, Liberty Star, Bride’s Bouquet, and many more.

I want to share a special Victory Quilt project with you to take you back to that “greatest generation” of brave men and women who gave of themselves to keep our country free. The project appears on the next four pages (available to magazine subscribers). I hope you will enjoy making “Stars All Around.”

Reprinted from Quilting Now magazine, August 2008