Has anyone made a quilt from the McCall's Heritage Stars pattern?
 

After a year of collecting civil war reproduction fat quarters, plus a few fabrics from my stash, I'm ready to put this quilt together. I've always wanted to make a quilt from the these fabrics since the bedroom addition to our house was built during the Civil War era. My dilemma is that the quilt will only finish to be 75" square and my bed queen size. I don't like the border on the pattern -it is 3 borders made from the scraps. Do I just add simple border and use it as a throw on the bed or continue to collect fat quarters and make about 25 more stars to make it queen size? Loved putting the fabrics together for each star, though.

Although a lot of work, I would always regret that I didn't make it big enough to fit the bed as it is supposed to. It is lovely!

Wow its beautiful - i agree - if you've done this much work, you might regret that you didn't finish it to the desired size - either add more squares or do borders to fill up necessary space

You could make a row of stars on the top and the bottom to add that extra length that you need. I always made my queen size quilt 90" x 108 which was the size of Hobbs cotton batting. 7.5" borders will give you the width you need. Then a row of 9" stars would give you the added 18" on to give you the length of 108". Hope this helps.

if you really don't want to make it bigger, it's your quilt. laying it across your bed would look lovely, too. for myself, though, i'd rather have the full size to properly cover the bed.

Could you add narrow sashes to give it more width and height? Then if you still need to add a border it won't be as prominent. Or would setting them on point be an option? What ever you go with be sure to post a picture! It's going to be lovely!

I did not like the border that they chose as well on this pattern(I have it,done it) I switched mine out to what I liked. I am giving you a link of photos just to show options. It would help you with the width/length you would need for it to look well on the bed. When you click on this, look at pattern 1,3,4 for an idea. http://countrysampler.typepad.com/co...-patterns.html Your stars are so pretty.

It's so pretty I would keep going and make it fit the bed!

Perhaps this... Your bed is approximately 60x78. You have the width already covered by your stars. Add a row at the bottom to give you a bit of length then put a dark blue star fabric (Civil war era) or dark red star pattern solid border all the way around to give you the overhang you desire for your bed quilt. 90x100 is a good size overall but remember, a border just frames the design of your quilt. I design the interesting parts of my queen size quilts to be 60x72 and then use the border to emphasize the work I did in the main pattern. It also helps me make the bed. Easy to get it right, first time, every time. LOL. Funny thing is, since I made my first quilt for MY bed (and didn't give it away), my bed is usually made in the AM because I like looking at MY work.
tim in san jose

I think you will always regret it if you don't make it larger. I know I would. You can enlarge it in so many ways, as mentioned above: sashing strips, more stars, putting the stars you already made on point. It doesn't have to be borders.