August Pattern of the Month: Stellar Flare

Meet August's Pattern of the Month - Stellar Flare!

Welcome to August! I'm exciting to bring you another modern quilt pattern highlight from the Cotton and Joy quilt pattern library. This quilt pattern is my take on the classic Sawtooth Star quilt pattern. As a quilt pattern designer, I feel like it's the rite of passage into the world of quilting to design a Sawtooth Star quilt pattern. And boy, do I love this one! Keep reading as I take you through my Stellar Flare journey!

Quilt with colorful sawtooth star pattern displayed on stone steps at sunset, highlighting the vibrant design of the Stellar Flare quilt pattern in an outdoor setting

About the Quilt Pattern

The Stellar Flare quilt is a clean and modern star quilt pattern. This is the perfect pattern for a newer quilters or for a seasoned quilters trying to find inspiration again with a fast sew. Grab your favorite fat quarter bundle and dive right into this fun quilt!

Stellar Flare quilt draped over a stone wall, showing colorful star patterns as featured in August's Pattern of the Month.

Special Offer

Stellar Flare is on sale throughout the month of August 2024! Enjoy discounts on both the digital PDF pattern and printed pattern until 8/31/24. Don't miss out on this opportunity to add a stellar quilt to your collection! You can find the full current Pattern of the Month collection at the end of this blog post.

Stellar Flare quilt held up on a dirt path surrounded by greenery, displaying colorful star patterns and promoting August's Pattern of the Month.

Stellar Flare Quilts

The Scrappy One

The original Stellar Flare quilt, the one that pulled this design into a real life quilt, one of my favorite quilts!

Blue and white Stellar Flare quilt with intricate star patterns, featuring a modern design for quilters as part of August's Pattern of the Month series.

This Stellar Flare quilt was the one that I used to test out my math, construction ideas, and overall composition. And I am super glad that I did this like I always do because it made me realize that making a throw size quilt with 240 Half Square Triangle blocks was just ~not for me~. But after cutting the fabric up and starting the sewing process, there was no looking back! I was committed to finishing this version of the Stellar Flare quilt.

Detailed close-up of blue and white Stellar Flare quilt on a wooden floor, emphasizing the star patterns and quilting texture, part of August's Pattern of the Month.

I based the fabrics chosen for this quilt off of my navy scrappy Joyful Stars quilt I had made before this. I loved this scrappy quilt so much that I thought it needed a sister quilt. While the Stellar Flare quilt pattern is not written in a way to make a scrappy version like this, it's super easy to do! Here's what you'll need to do to get a quilt like mine:

Follow the Cutting Instructions table to know how many S1 squares you need, and then mix and match as you work through the Flying Geese and Star Centers sections of the quilt pattern. So for the Flying Geese section, use 4 non-matching S1 squares for each 4-at-a-time group. And for the Star Centers section, use 4 non-matching S1 triangles (I hope that makes sense!)

Close-up of a blue and white Stellar Flare quilt hanging on a wooden rail, highlighting the detailed star pattern and quilting, featured in August's Pattern of the Month.

The longarm quilting on this quilt was stitched by Katie at Modern Textiles! This adorable pantograph she used is Cartwheels. I love using curvy or loopy longarm quilting designs when quilting up a quilt full of points and strong angles!

You can read more about this Scrappy Stellar Flare quilt here.

Full view of the blue and white Stellar Flare quilt hanging on a wall, showcasing the modern star pattern design, part of August's Pattern of the Month series.

The Confetti Cottons One

Up next is my cover girl! This all solids Stellar Flare was made using the oh-so-soft Riley Blake Design's Confetti Cottons Solids. These have become my go-to solid fabrics to use in my quilts. And not because I'm a huge fan of Riley Blake Designs, but because these solids are such good quality and come in the best colors!

I used the colors Songbird, Mermaid, Orchid, Raspberry, Coral, Lemon Zest, Gray, Silver, and White in the Confetti Cotton solids. These were such fun and happy colors and knew right away that they would be perfect for the cover!

Hand holding a stack of colorful fabric bundles in shades of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, and gray, illustrating Riley Blake Designs Confetti Cotton fabric options for the Stellar Flare quilt pattern.

When organizing how I want these colors to be distributed throughout the quilt, one of my favorite things to do is take a little scrap piece of each color to create a "mini design wall" on my table. I move the tiny scrap pieces around in a layout matching the quilt - in this case, a 4 x 5 grid of stars - until I like it. This helps me decide which colors are going to go where in the quilt without needing the space of a full design wall!

Bright and colorful Stellar Flare quilt top featuring vibrant star patterns, illustrating a cheerful design for August's Pattern of the Month.

The quilting on this Stellar Flare quilt was done by me! I did some classic straight-line quilting on my Janome 9450 using my walking foot, at about 3/4" apart, which is in my opinion the perfect spacing for some straight-line quilting. It gives you just enough texture without overtaking the quilt design.

You can read more about the Stellar Flare cover quilt here.

Close-up of the colorful Stellar Flare quilt showing detailed star patterns and blue backing with pink binding, highlighting the intricate quilting work for August's Pattern of the Month.

Special Longarm Quilting Offer

We are thrilled to offer a special longarm quilting discount again for August! Enhance your Stellar Flare quilt with professional longarm quilting services from our talented friend Alexis at Stitched by Alexis. Alexis has been photographing all our Pattern of the Month quilts, capturing their beauty perfectly.

Take advantage of a 15% discount on edge-to-edge quilting for any Stellar Flare quilts sent to Alexis by September 15th. Simply use the code STELLARFLARE15 on the Stitched by Alexis order form to enjoy this exclusive offer.

Happy quilting!