I can’t use the word "pivot" without thinking of the episode of Friends when Ross convinces Rachel and Chandler to carry a couch up flights of stairs to his apartment. (Spoiler alert: Things do not end well for the couch.) The story I’m about to tell you about pivoting, however, features neither furniture nor nineties TV-show plot lines ...
I started a new project! After finishing four baby quilts for charity, I thought I deserved to embark on something new, despite the small pile of WIPs staring me down each day. I chose Stara, a pattern by Taralee Quiltery because I had already purchased the corresponding acrylic templates from Cut Once Quilts back in 2025.
I planned to use some black Starry scraps for the spiky triangles (see them in the full design here), leftover Ruby Star basics for the nine-patches, and white-on-white Punch Hole Dots from my stash. Are you picking up on the theme here? All the fabric was from my stash or scrap bin, and everything was Ruby Star. What could go wrong?
I started with piecing the white background with spiky Starry triangles and, after an hour or two of sewing, realized Something Very Bad was happening. Because of my light background and the sharp angles of the triangles, the black Starry would show through my pressed seams.
In the past, I haven’t realized comparable shadowing issues until the project at hand was quilted. In other words, it was too late to address the issue. I knew I wouldn’t be pleased with my finished Stara, so I pivoted. My order for different background fabrics should arrive on Monday.
Often a snafu like this one would call for a time-out—I would need a break from the problematic project. The issue with placing a quilt top in process into time-out, though, is that it will most likely become just another WIP. To maintain the momentum I had built up for Stara, I persevered with the nine-patches. Playing with colorful fabrics did my heart good, and I made good progress while waiting for the new background options to arrive. Phew—background-fabric crisis and potential WIP averted!
Are you able to pivot mid-project like that, or are you more of a time-out kind of quilter?
Also, something else I’m curious about ... The Starry scraps were from wideback yardage. I know that fabric manufacturers use
different gray goods to produce widebacks and that widebacks tend to
shrink more than standard-width quilting cottons, so I treated these
scraps with Retayne, a color fixative, and dried them on high. Have you ever used wideback for piecing? Please share your insight in the comments!
As for the other quilt of mine with shadowing issues, it was my own design: Set to Spin. I was able to come up with a workaround for that particular pattern, but I noticed the problem too late in the process to save my sample. Of course, you don’t notice the shadowing unless you’re curled up with the quilt ...
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Shadowing can be a definite problem, those quilts often become charity quilts. Your blocks with the fabrics shown look great! Happy stitching!
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