Compare our quilts

The quilt at the top with the dark border is my quilt. The other quilt was pieced by my friend. Both quilts were made at the same time, but I put my squares together long before Sandy did. Both quilts come from a book called Country Gatherings by Monique Dillard and Sue Glorch. We both used the same setting for our quilts. Look at how different they look! Or maybe it is just me. The big difference is the way we used the setting in the book.

Sandy made hers by buying the $5.00 block of the month at Quilter's Corner. She used the fabrics that were picked by Dawn from the store. She made the 12 block of the month squares and then made four more to make a total of 16 squares which is what the book setting called for. What Sandy didn't do--the pattern calls for an additional border around the 12" square with small corner squares. She didn't have enough fabric to do this for each square, so she just omitted that piece. I can see in the picture that her fabric has more gray tones.

I also bought the $5.00 block of the month, but in 30's fabrics. My 1800 reproduction fabrics were from my stash, leftovers from my Jo's Little Women days so there is more blues and purples--because that is what I like. Down went more for the browns. My setting uses the extra border with the small corner stones around each square because I had bigger background pieces and had plenty of fabric to do this. I had actually made the decision to use the setting from the very beginning, so I didn't use background fabrics that wouldn't allow for the extra border. I only made 12 squares. My quilt is not a square; it is a rectangle. You can't see it, but my corner squares are a very dark blue fabric (not black as it looks in the photo) with little red flowers and green leaves. My sashing tends toward the warmer tones.

The biggest decision we both made was the binding. Sandy used the same red she used for the small inner border. I agonized for days over the binding. I made Sandy drive out to Quilter's Corner to look for a piece that I found out later I bought at the shop that closed in December. I was really apprehensive over using the red for the binding. It matches the red flowers in the border fabric. One last note. Both of us put on an outside border. The pattern in the book didn't call for an outer border. Personally, I just felt it needed a border to stop the quilt. I notice as I sneak one last look at the photos that Sandy's stars stand out and you can see them as individual blocks. Because I used the extra sashing around each block, my stars blend in and have given me a pattern I didn't expect.

I love everything about my quilt and I love Sandy's too! Aren't they just beautiful????