Two of our favorite things are quilt-a-longs and highlighting patterns by designers we love. This summer, we piggy backed on Katie Zahm’s QAL of her new pattern Astra, and I don’t think we’ll ever get tired of the possibilities for this quilt! Whether you’ve already pieced yours or you’re thinking about piecing Astra, keep reading to feel inspired by this pattern.

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It has been a long time since an intricate quilt pattern has captured my attention quite like Astra, but Katie of Zahm Co did a truly remarkable job designing this quilt, and it seems to sparkle in every color way we stitch or audition. In addition to looking fabulous in different colors and fabrics, Astra lends itself well to different quilting plans, too. Today, I’m going to walk you through the several we’ve stitched and drawn to make our Astras look even more amazing.

Shop Astra

Quilting Plans

If this is the first time you’ve joined me for quilting plans, I generally reference three types of plans: all over designs (1 quilting motif), semi-custom designs (2-3 motifs), and fully custom designs (4+ motifs). Sometimes I talk about introductory, beginner, and intermediate quilting plans— these refer to the difficulty level of the motifs or the sheer time involved in executing a plan.

Darcy pieced two Astra samples. The first (left) is throw sized (at a whopping 60 x 80 inches). Darcy used an all over swirl on this Daphne-colorway Astra quilt on her domestic machine. The swirls softened the strong angles of the stars and log cabins, but by matching her quilting thread to the background fabric, her piecing stayed the star of the show.

The second sample is a baby sized (right), and I love looking at these two quilts size by side because the baby quilt (Monica color way) is a fully custom plan— the “opposite” if you will of an all over design, yet both quilting plans are effective and creating a beautiful finished quilt that shows off the stunning piecing of this block

By the way, I also matched my thread to the background of the quilt (using a light blue variegated, Aurifil 4663), and I think this was key to creating texture that accents rather than competes with the piecing.

Here you can see three drawn quilting plans for Astra. The far left is an all over design (McTavishing). The center is a semi-custom design (swirls in the blocks, and wishbones in the sashing/ border). The far right is most similar to the fully custom quilting plan I chose.

If you like this custom design, I quilted something similar a few years ago in the center of my Camp Oda May quilt. You can check it out here.

Video

If it wasn’t obvious, I think the Astra quilt is beautifully designed and fun to quilt. This pattern incorporates a number of classic quilting units, making it a perfect way to practice your piecing and quilting.

Other Resources

• Blog: Introduction to Quilting Plans

• Blog: Introduction to Procreate (the app I use to draw my quilting plans)

• Blog: How to Use Dot to Dot Quilting to Show Off Your Piecing