The Friendship Star Quilt Read Free

with the lovely vintage Friendship Star pattern. The blocks required three complimentary shades of fabric, cut in different-sized squares and triangular half-squares. The blocks would then be banded with a fourth color for contrast. Using a mat, quilting ruler, and her rotary cutter, Anne had carefully prepared the pieces. She’d chosen a white calico with dainty purple flowers to use for the stars themselves. A solid dark purple square would be in the center of each star. Anne would highlight these with blocks of light lilac calico then mount them on a base of white muslin. Small squares of each colored fabric would form a diagonal frame between the star blocks, crisscrossing the white quilt top. The design would require a lot of hand-piecing, but when finished, it would be a very feminine version of the classic quilt. Anne pictured it on the white-washed four-poster bed in her apartment.
    It didn’t take long for her to cut the components she needed and stack them in a clear plastic storage tote to keep them clean. She left out only enough pieces to work on her first block. Before settling down to baste it together, she glanced around the group to see if any of the women needed her help. The meeting wasn’t meant to be a class – in fact, Lila and some of the others had been quilting long before Anne had even been born — but the young clerk still felt responsible for them and their projects. The group members were some of the shop’s best customers, and Myra had always stressed the importance of keeping them happy. So she helped out however she could.
    â€œAnne? I’m ready to start the machine quilting. Would you mind helping me get started?” Sue Visser stood by the long-armed machine, holding her quilt top. The frame set up next to it would hold the top, batting, and backing steady as the machine quilted the layers together. However, putting the three components on the frame was a two-person job.
    The long-armed quilter was one of the shop’s big draws. Unlike a traditional sewing machine, which had a fixed needle arm under which the quilt was fed, this one held the quilt steady on a frame and the sewing arm moved around it. The quilt top, batting, and backing were carefully stacked then rolled taut on a six-foot long cylinder and fed through the frame onto another cylinder, much like a giant scroll. The operator could guide the moveable sewing arm around the section of quilt exposed between the two cylinders to create beautiful background stitching patterns. An attached computer could be programmed to create hundreds of different designs and the long arm could be moved to wherever the operator wanted to place the stitches. A number of companies made the long-arm quilters, but the machines were still much too expensive for most hobbyists to own. Having access to one at The Stitching Post was a real bonus. Many women brought their finished quilt tops to the shop, and Myra charged them an hourly fee to use the machine, which offset its maintenance cost. Since the members of the quilt group were all experienced sewers, Myra let them use the machine for a fraction of the normal fee.
    Now, Anne helped Sue connect the layers of her quilt to the long cylinders then lift them onto the frame. Once the machine was threaded and Sue programmed the stitch she wanted, Anne watched for a bit to be certain it operated smoothly for the woman. Around them, the others worked on their own projects. Tee Donovan sewed blocks for a colorful quilt for her daughter’s bed. Lila used a mat and rotary cutter to make the squares for her granddaughter’s gift. Ellen Wheeler was busy with an embroidered block she was making for a shower gift. Mary Biros had a small wall hanging for her granddaughter’s room, and Doris McDermid hand-stitched one of the exquisite baby quilts which were her specialty. As always, the ladies chatted as they worked, catching up on their families and commiserating with one