The second thing I did differently that helped with the matching is that I was a lot more careful about the matching! I saw a nice YouTube video by Quilt Addicts Anonymous with helpful tips and one was a way to use pins to help match points.
When I ran the idea of a quilt past Thome, she said she'd also like an Ohio star quilt, and the color she'd like it to be was green. She's a nature lover, so I decided to make it out of a mix of nature fabrics. Originally, I thought I could mix it up a lot, with the light and dark squares being all different prints, like this one below. Isn't it lovely? (I copied it from Pinterest...sorry, not sure whose it is...)
I used a total of 7 fabrics. I named them all so I could keep them straight during the playing-around-with-placement stage and the sewing phase. They were all the ones that worked together of those I had collected over several months. Ideally, I might have liked more, or different ones, but this is what I could find that matched the theme and color ideas I was going for.
- I don't have enough of this fabric because I decided to use it as one of the 7 fabrics for the squares on the front. I was just in Joann's and this fabric is g.o.n.e. I can start doing the hunt-for-discontinued-fabric-at-all-my-local-Joann-stores quest again, which I really don't care to do, or I can find something else. One downside is that I am just one f-ing yard short so I'll have to find another use for 3.5 yards of bee fabric.
- I want to use a different fabric on the back from any I used on the front...and I keep thinking there might be somegthing super sweet out there that would really elevate the whole piece.
- I wonder if having bees next to your body is off-putting. The image should be soothing and comforting...but bees sting, so I'm second-guessing this choice.
I got it all done and took it to the quilter's today!!! She can't get to it before OCTOBER. I'm glad she's doing great business. She's very good and she's only 15 minutes away from me.