Moonglow is a quilt designed by Jinny Beyer, using fabrics that she also designed. It was originally made available close to 15 years ago and I’ve always loved it. Last year, I treated myself to a kit, using some birthday money, and this year, I’ve started to cut, piece and sew it.

You can buy a kit from Jinny Beyer Studios, which includes the fabric and pattern, right here.

Mr. Math always laughs when I buy a kit. He builds ship models, so when he buys a kit, he gets little cast cannons and different kinds of wood, etc., as well as the plans. He can spend the better part of a day making sure he has all the bits and ends, and checking that he likes the quality and scale of them. Sometimes he buys different castings. He usually buys different (better) flags. He always looks at online galleries of other people building the kit, to get their tips and tricks. It’s very complicated and it can take weeks for him to get to the point of being ready to start. In contrast, I got a box of fabric and had a link in my receipt to download the PDF pattern to print it out. I put a new blade in my rotary cutter and was ready to go.

I did cut all of the outside borders first and have set them aside. If you look at the image, you can see that there are alternating blocks in a modified log cabin block – it might be courthouse steps. There are actually two different layouts of them, six of each. They look like this:

I took these pictures outside on a dingy day, which means the colours are fairly accurate but the images look less crisp.

Next I started on the stars. Here are the first two, pieced with their neighboring blocks. The one at the top goes on the right edge in the middle, and the one at the bottom in my picture goes on the left edge of the finished top.

This is block three, which goes at the top center. I made a mistake in this one and cut the triangles with the right side up instead of the wrong side up, which means mine spins in the opposite direction.

It’s also not as square as I’d like it to be, but I want to make sure I don’t run out of fabric. If I finish the other blocks and have enough left, I’ll do it again. I’m also changing to using the paper piecing for the blocks – those diagonal seams on the bias are hard to get right.

Next up, star four, which goes at the bottom in the middle. I’m really enjoying the piecing of this quilt, even when it challenges me a bit, and I love the colours. What do you think?