Aran – Page 2 – InkTorrents Graphics

Star patterns in my Shop

I will start with a little background story to this quilt. A few years ago while I was volunteering at a shelter, Mr. Montague Wilberforce joined our little band. At the time he was a sick, stressed-out, untrusting, biting middle-aged man. However, over months of care and a lot of patience, he became a healthy, relaxed and loving gentleman who now purrs all the time. He also likes nothing better than to spend a lot of his day with me.

Except, there is the little factor of a gigantic Maine Coon boy named Mr. Tuffleberry who has been spending his days with me while I work since he was a tiny little kitten. He does not like to share his bed. So Mr. Montague comes by now and then in between his romps around the house to cuddle and sleep on my lap for a while. Since he loves to be very close to his humans without being on the lap the whole time, he spends the rest of the day with my husband in the next room while he works.

I really love quilting for my kitties. I made the 2014 Pantone Challenge quilt for Mr. Tuffleberry while he was recovering from a surgery. Now it was time to make a personal quilt for Mr. Montague as well.

My knitting stars quilt patterns – Aran, Argyle, Vale and Fair Isle

Star patterns in my Shop

I had made these vintage-themed star quilt blocks last year. Having read up on the history of British knitting, I based these patterns on traditional knitting designs. I made the Argyle and Vale stars first from a set of Grandma’s House fat quarters, and then a mistake led me to making the Fair Isle Star and the Aran Star with different background colours. I found a perfect Fleur-de-lis grey-cream fabric for the sashing, and I used it for the backing too. Originally I wanted to hand quilt this, but I am a very slow hand quilter and it would have taken forever. At the end I decided to machine quilt it with a crisscross diagonal quilting pattern using a green variegated thread and bound the quilt with Kona Chocolate.

Now my beautiful blue-eyed boy Monty has a quilt made specially for him that he lounges on and I can chalk up another finish.

-Soma

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Purchase Aran Star Pattern

While browsing knitting patterns and attempting to learn about the history of knitting, I came across Aran knitting. I find the cable designs of Aran knitting to be incredibly intricate and beautiful. This is my Aran star – possibly my most favourite star among knitting star quilt blocks. The diamonds and the lines between them in this star are very much inspired by Aran knitting.

This was the initial block I made using the Grandma’s House Keys fabric for the background. I love to pretend that the “petals” are portals to different worlds. With a different key, a completely different world opens up through the same portal.

Purchase Aran Star Pattern

Although the Aran star is not nearly as complex as traditional Aran knitting, it can have that layer of intricacy by adding extra colours to the basic design.

Purchase Fair Isle Star Pattern

The Fair Isle Star seemed like the perfect companion for the Aran Star since they share similar diamond shapes and lines.

This exact block is the reason for my having to make two of each! I made the Aran Star with the Keys fabric at first, and then I moved on to making this one. Once I finished the block, I realised that I had printed this one at 94%. Since this was going be used on a mini quilt, I needed this to be an exact 10″ block. By now I had completely run out of the keys fabric since I only had a fat quarter to begin with. So I had to switch to a different background fabric and I made the Fair Isle Star with the blue background. Since I couldn’t have just one star with a different background, I had to make another matching Aran star with the same blue background fabric as well.

To avoid future printing mistakes, I have started putting a 1″ square on every page of my new patterns. I am updating all of my old patterns to include that 1″ square as well. Hopefully no more printing mistakes for me.

I think I will make pillows with the keys blocks. They will go very well with the Fairy Door Pillow that I made earlier this year.

Purchase Fair Isle Star Pattern

I could play with the colours on these two stars forever! I love how the look changes with the added colours on the straight lines. They look like Star-bursts.

Mini quilt layout with my knitting stars quilt patterns – Vale, Fair Isle, Aran and Argyle

Purchase star patterns in my shop

In retrospect I am actually happy the mistake happened. Rather than having all four blocks with a green background, the blue blocks add more interest to the mini. I will be using Kona Bone for sashing. I really want to hand quilt this mini which will have to wait until I finish making the Halloween quilt. You will see these stars appear again on that quilt too. I am also nearly finished with the layout of the star quilt with solid colours as well. More on that later!

Happy Sewing,
-Soma

Behind Blue Eyes

Aran And Fair Isle Stars