Just Finish It Challenge - A Finished Quilt

I've turned another UFO into a finished quilt.  This one also counts as a "Fig Tree Harvest," that is, a project using my vast collection of fabric from Fig Tree & Company for Moda Fabrics.  My plan is to store this quilt until I need a baby quilt as a gift for someone.  

Teresa Silva of Quilting Is My Bliss did the longarm quilting.  

All of the fabric, including the border, binding, and backing, came from my Fig Tree stash.  This is the stash that never seems to diminish in size; I still have tons!

The pattern is called Coastal and is by Sherri of A Quilting Life.  I made this pattern before, sticking to the pattern directions.  That quilt is called Jingle All The Way.  It is one of my favorites.  

Making the pattern a second time, I decided to "customize" it with a little variation.  Instead of sawtooth stars, I made modified Ohio stars.  

To modify the Ohio star, you start with the components of a traditional Ohio star block.  

Then you trim the hourglass block components.  I trimmed a 1/4 inch off of each hourglass as shown, 

so that when sewn together, the blocks would be 4 inches square.  I did pause and reconsider after making the first block, concerned it looked like I accidently nipped off the points with careless sewing.  But I thought it would be fine when I had all the blocks done.  

The quilt does look good from a distance, but up close, it looks more like mistakes happened.  

This modified Ohio star technique works much better in a larger block.  It is how I made this Christmas quilt, the quilt that elicits the most enquiries on my blog.  I even have a tutorial for how to make the block; see the sidebar to the right on my blog for the full step-by-step process with photos.  

If I make this pattern again, I will go back to the sawtooth star blocks.  But I don't regret what I did.  I've made a lot of quilts; I don't love them all equally, plus it is important to try new things and take the occasional design risk to grow as a quilter.