Cosmic Kites - a half rectangle triangle baby quilt

I'm happy to share Cosmic Kites, my latest finish, my project for The Modern Quilt Guild's Michael Miller Petal Pinwheels Challenge, and my first ever half rectangle triangle quilt. Right off the bat, I want to thank Latifah Saafir and state that I followed her great tutorial on the Modern Quilt Guild's blog all the way from cutting fabric, to assembling my blocks, to the final layout. Latifah's quilt is called Kite Tails and I agreed with her that the diamond shapes looked like kites. I quilted stars into the centres of my kites to mimic the shapes in the grey Star Jacks print, hence the name Cosmic Kites.

Detail of eight-pointed star quilting. It took me several tries to figure out how to draw an eight-pointed star continuously, but once I figured out the trick of skipping two points and aiming for the third point, it was great!

I'd never tried half rectangle triangles (HRTs) and I thought this challenge was a good chance to give them a try! I found them trickier than HSTs and more fussy to trim because you don't just line everything up on a 45 degree angle and cut. There's marking and careful alignment involved. However, they give a great graphic effect, so I may just try them again!

I brought my blocks to a recent Vancouver Modern Quilt Guild all-day sew-in and finished piecing them by lunchtime.

I worked surprisingly hard all afternoon and evening and got the quilt basted and quilted by the time I packed up around 8:30pm. I heard plenty of expressions of disbelief in reference to my unexpected productivity that day! (I'm know for chatting and not getting much done at VMQG sew-ins!).

I posted the previous picture to Instagram (that's where you can find me all the time these days, my blog isn't nearly as active) and Debbie Jeske (A Quilter's Table) emailed to let me know she'd like to feature this quilt in her July Quilting Trends column on Sew, Mama, Sew! I was thrilled! That gave me the incentive to get this quilt bound quickly and I think the Ta Dot print in Apple green brings out the green in the Petal Pinwheels line. Thank you, Debbie!

I backed the quilt with an Erin McMorris Leaf Dot print that I'd been saving since I spotted it in a remnants bin at a LQS in Langley that has since closed.

I loved zipping along and sewing up these straight lines (no marking involved) with my Janome 7700. I used Aurifil 2024 in 28wt and the lines have beautiful definition.

This quilt will be shared at the upcoming annual VMQG outdoor meeting (don't wanna miss the group photo!) and then gifted to a new little second cousin who was born the day I was quilting it!

Have you given HRTs a try?