Happy Anniversary to Jaftex!

Congratulations, Jaftex, on your 85th Anniversary in the fabric industry.  What a milestone! Jaftex is the parent company of  Henry Glass Fabrics, Studio e Fabrics, and Blank Quilting Corp. and has been a family owned business  for all 85 years - Jaftex actually stands for company founder Jacob A 
Fortunoff Textiles.  As many of you know, Little Quilts has been designing fabric for Henry Glass for over 15 years and we can tell you from personal experience...Jaftex is the best!  We're so excited to have been welcomed into their family and we're honored to be part of their anniversary celebration.
We're very grateful for the support from Robert, Scott, & Greg Fortunoff, and the help from our Design Director, Lisa Loessel and her talented staff of artists who help us coordinate, refine, and prepare the new fabric collections Little Quilts presents to you.  Our newest collection in the 'Reflections of the South' series is "Roswell Mill". It features warm, rich reproduction fabrics with three beautiful toiles picturing  a working cotton mill in the South that will be perfect for backings and backgrounds. See the collection on the Henry Glass website along with free downloadable projects for quilts and  a table runner using this beautiful line of fabric. When the fabric arrives in the coming months, we'll also have kits available on our website. Sign up for our email newsletter and you'll be among the first to know  when it arrives in the shop!
We hope you've been enjoying the Anniversary Blog Hop and all the beautiful quilts the designers have made,  with Jaftex fabrics.  We love stars here at Little Quilts so we chose a great star pattern for our anniversary quilt and isn't the quilt even more gorgeous photographed at one of the libraries in New York...

 We were thrilled to open our box and find it filled with brightly colored fabrics from the Folio collection by Henry Glass.  We love using Folios as blenders and backgrounds and stock most of them in the shop!

We wanted a project that would showcase the vibrancy of the colors and decided on a Hunter's Star pattern.  We call it Anniversary Star in honor of Jaftex's 85th.

Our Hunter Star quilt is 42" x 56" - a good throw size.  

Making a Hunter's Star Quilt is easy using the  Rapid Fire Hunter's Star Ruler by Studio 180 Designs! We began by dividing the fabrics into warm and cool colorways.

and cutting into the appropriate size pieces.

Following the easy directions with the Hunter's Star Ruler, we stitched these odd looking units.

After pressing, the units were subcut using the ruler, as shown. 

Units were trimmed...

and pieced into the Hunter Star units.

Don't you just love these bright, rich colors?

The units were stitched into blocks...

The blocks are over-sized so we trimmed them to the exact size we needed using the 'square-up' end of the Hunter's Star ruler. The Rapid Fire Hunter's Star Ruler has all the measurements for oversizing the units and trimming them to the exact size to sew 5" - 8" star blocks

and when the blocks are stitched together, the stars just magically appear and they're perfect every time!

A large design wall will help with color placement of the blocks...

We used the left-over fabric to make a fabulous pieced  stripe binding for the quilt.  Different length strips were pieced together. For a wider binding to show on the front of the quilt we cut the strips 

3 1/2" wide.

Attach the binding strip to the quilt...

Trim the binding evenly around the quilt (notice we trim 1/2" - 3/4" away from the fabric, leaving extra backing and batting to make the binding a little wider to show off the pieced strips)...

And look at the beautiful result!

We'd like to help you start your own Hunter's Star Anniversary Quilt.  Let us know if you've ever attempted a Hunter's Star Quilt or if it's on your bucket list and we'll randomly select someone, and send one lucky winner a bundle of 20 fabulous Folio Fat 1/4ths!

The Rapid Fire Hunter's Star Ruler by Studio 180 is available on our website .  It comes with detailed, easy-to-follow directions for making the quilt! We used the Petite Star ruler (makes blocks 5" -8") for our quilt.

And don't forget about the great anniversary prizes being given by Jaftex - there are many ways to enter and lots of chances to win! Check out how here...  85th Anniversary Giveaway

There's another great designer being featured today.  Find out more about  Mary Jane Carey, at Holly Hill Quilt Designs.  She designs small seasonal projects that will make you smile.
Continue the Anniversary Blog Hop tomorrow...we think you'll love the whimsical, improv designs of Daisy Aschehoug of Ants To Sugar.

Thanks for visiting our blog - we hope you'll check back with us soon!