Points of Interest is the quilt we learned how to make on day 1 of our retreat, here is a photo of the quilt from the retreat. The class was taught by Jo Kramer and Kelli Jo Hanken who also designed the quilt and organized our Bonnie Hunter retreat. The quilt was originally selected by and published in American Patchwork and quilting’s April 2017 magazine.Prior to the retreat attendees were given cutting instructions, so as to cut our fabric for the quilt prior to class. There were no guidelines for fabric, we could make the quilt “scrappy” using an assortment of fabrics or you could use coordinating fabrics and this is what I did. Our daughter, Gene Anne helped me choose the fabric for this quilt from Quilter’s Window in New Hampton, Iowa. I was looking for colors in the neutral family and looking for colors that I had not used in the past. Here you can see how the print fabrics will be emphasized by the grey background.At first I was unsure about exactly how to follow the cutting instructions, but after a few questions were answered by Jo and Kelli on Facebook, it became clear and easy!

To make the star points we used the Tri-Rec Triangle rulers by Darlene Zimmerman. I purchased these and have worked with rulers similar to these in the past. These notions make your cutting accurate and are time saving. There is an A and a B template, here you can see the grey was cut from the A’s and the green fabric was cut from the B’s.This photo shows how the fabric is cut into 3 1/2 inch strips, 4 layers at a time, ruler is placed on top and then the edge is cut to give you a rectangular shaped piece. The pattern calls for 284 of these and 284 of these reversed. That is a lot of triangles!

In this photo you can see my B triangles, I only needed 284 of these.
With the cutting complete, the pieces were packed up for the retreat. At the retreat, Jo and Kelli showed us the step by step process of how to sew these pieces together. Here is an example of my completed pieces before they are sewn together to form a block. I am happy with my color selection.
And here is a photo of a completed block!Typically with quilts, you make all the blocks and then sew them together, but wait! This is why it is important to follow the instructions. Look what they show. See how some are blocks and some are partial blocks.Here is an example of my layout before sewing some of the blocks together.In my retreat blog post I was planning on sewing 30 minutes a day, well that happened on some days, but not all. Here is my progress so far. It may not look like much, but I am very pleased with how it is coming along and I am excited to see how it looks when it is all done!
To my other retreat attendees, how are your Points of Interest quilts doing, let us know!