Niagara Stars pattern is here!

Hello friends,

Well today is the day – my first commercial pattern, under Mara Quilt Designs brand is here!

Niagara Stars is a beginner friendly pattern featuring only one block, it comes in three sizes (Baby, Lap and Queen) and it is both, limited palette and fat-quarter friendly. However, my absolute favorite feature of this pattern is that it will invite you to play with the block layouts and create a quilt (or two, or three…) that is uniquely your own.

When I decided to create my line of patterns under Mara Quilt Designs, there was a deep and long process of figuring out what is my unique niche, my focus and passion. What emerged from that process is that my biggest passion is to inspire creativity in my fellow quilters. I decided to create patterns that will invite you to play. To play with different block layouts, to play with color placements, block settings and anything else I can think of!

Niagara Stars is the first pattern in this series and I hope it will give anyone who tries it lots of joy and playtime.

The design of the star block, with it’s visual diagonal divide, makes it ideal for creating many different layouts of the quilt, giving you freedom to play and make each quilt uniquely different.

Here are just some examples how different quilts can look, depending on the block layouts you pick:

And these designs are just a tip of the iceberg of how many different ones you can make, not to mention color and fabric choices.

The best inspiration I can offer you will be to show you all the amazing creations my pattern testers made. I am completely in awe of the creativity of fabric choices and layouts they made and that will require a whole new blog post or two – coming soon! In the meantime, make sure you follow the hashtag #niagarastarsquilt to see all their Instagram posts – amazing!!

I will leave you today with some facts about the pattern itself and my cover quilt:

Pattern comes in three sizes: baby/small lap (54″x54″), throw (72″x72″) and queen size (90″x90″).

Fabrics: pattern can be made with only 3 or 4 different colors or scrappy/fat quarter friendly.

Skill level: beginner friendly – block are made with simple elements like Half-square triangles and simple star-point units.

Niagara Stars cover quilt:

Fabrics: prints from the Willow collection by Sharon Holland for Art Gallery Fabrics, including the backing, a flannel print from the same collection.

Size: Throw size, 72″x72″

Batting: Hobbs Tuscany Silk Blend

Thread for piecing and quilting: Aurifil 50wt and some 12wt

I hope you feel inspired to give Niagara Stars pattern a try, specially now during the Release Celebration sale, when it is 25% off! You can find the pattern in the Shop tab of my website.

If you have a comment or a question about it – I would love to hear!

If you purchase a pattern and make a quilt – I would love to see it! Please tag me @maraquiltdesigns , use hashtag #niagarastarsquilt or send me an email.

Stay tuned for the amazing parade of tester quilts in the next blog post,

Happy quilting,

Marija