“Vintage Lace” Layer Cake, Part 1

We took a day trip, hubby and I. It had been a while since we were more than 15 minutes away from home and it was time for a day trip.

One of our favorite day trips is Port Townsend, WA, on the northeast tip of the Olympic Penninsula, just 90 minutes north west of us. In addition to stunning views, it has a wonderful little cafe called the Spruce Goose and my favorite quilt shop, Creative Union

After meeting a friend for lunch and a visit to the beach, we headed for the quilt shop.

I told hubby it was okay to skip the fabric store. Really, it’s okay, I have too much fabric as it is! But he was insistent. In addition to the handmade chocolates we picked up, he felt that this day trip need fabric acquisition to be complete. So, yes we went into the Creative Union quilt shop and hubby found this.

Yes, it was pretty and finding nothing else that caught my immediate attention, I agreed to purchase the layer cake and a yardage length of one of the prints.

I have been trying to reduce, rather than grow my fabric stash which meant that I needed to use this layer cake, or at least a portion of it, relatively quickly.

The next morning I sorted the colors into dark, medium and light.

The second thing was to soak them in Synthropol to eliminate excess dye and bleeding. This would be a lap or baby quilt, and needed to be washable! I soaked the pastel pile, and then the medium and then the darks. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the dye released was not excessive. There was some yellow and some green, but not a lot. I have soaked some in the past that have released clouds of color and required multiple soaks.

Next, I put the wet squares into two large lingerie washing bags and ran them through a short wash cycle with a little bit more .synthropol and a Shout dye catcher. The dye catcher came out clean. Yay! After air drying and ironing, I was ready to start.

Why not find a new pattern, one that I have never attempted, for this layer cake that was an outside of normal color choices? I selected three contenders from the Missouri Star Quilt website, watched the videos and decided on the Confetti Stars pattern. Full disclosure…I did not purchase the pattern. I watched the video several times and then dove in. To make the size quilt that I had in mind, I would only need half of the 42 layer cake squares.

This pattern needs good color contrast, so I pulled all the darks and enough of the mediums (20 in all) to make a quilt using 9 of the pattern squares which totaled 47.5″ square when completed. The pastels and lights will be used in a second lap quilt.

When watching these videos I try to remember a few things. 1) I am not Jenny Doan! 2) I am not an expert piecer! 3) Videos are made within a short time frame and edited and always look perfect! My experience will not be the same.

Caveats regarding the Confetti Stars pattern.

1. Be sure to measure your layer cake squares! My Island Batiks squares were a “scant 10 inches”. The Moda white squares I pulled from stash were a bit over sized. After cutting and sewing a number of squares, and having to do some ripping and trimming of individual pieces, I realized that I should have measured them at the beginning. The size differential caused too much variation in the piece sizes. I then cut all the remaining Moda white to a 10” size.
2. Patterns like this with “hacks” to make a complex design will not be as precise when you piece them. To get a more precise fit, you would need to make a template of each piece.
3. Over all I like the pattern and am satisfied with it. If I were to make it again, I would cut templates for the pieces. I think it would be a great pattern for a Christmas quilt using a holiday layer cake. This would also work for a Halloween or other holiday quilt,

Caveats regarding the video.

1. Jenny says not worry about nesting the seams because our machines can just sew over that thickness, Hmmm, sorry Jenny I disagree! Nesting the seams at the star centers is really critical for a nice looking join that can be pressed fairly flat. I doubt that Jenny does her own FMQ. I have to do my own and I know that I don’t want to quilt over a thick pile of seams! Where I could the star joins to line up (not all of them did!) I nested those as well. Jenny does not pin anything in this video, but I pinned everything after spending some time ripping out my early seams.

It is a little weird to see one of my quilts with so much pink, green and yellow! But I do like it.

This goes into my TBQ (to be quilted!) pile. And now I need to work on my grand daughter’s birthday quilt which has an early July deadline! After I get that done, and get back to my applique project, I will make a second quilt using the remaining layer cake squares.

Happy quilting and discovery!

Lennea