Summer Stars--Blogger's Quilt Festival

It's time for the Blogger's Quilt Festival again! Amy over at Amy's Creative Side hosts this parade of quilts twice a year; thanks so much for the work you've put into the festival, Amy! I'm happy to have a brand new finish to share this time. :)

Earlier this week I finished up my Summer Stars quilt and delivered it to my friends with the Seattle Modern Quilt Guild. We are having a star quilt exhibit at Island Quilter next month (starting on June 7); if you are in the area you should go see the quilts!

I am thankful for my getting-taller helper. The fence was wet and I couldn't hang the quilt up there like I normally do for photos. The finished quilt measures something like 61"x66".

This quilt is made of 8" and 10" sawtooth star blocks using various new and old orange and turquoise/aqua fabrics. The borders are made from (most of) the half square triangles that were leftover from making the star blocks. I used Kona Aqua colored solid fabric for the borders.

Here's the back:

The Chinese character fabric was exactly the right length so I cut it into two pieces and then filled in the middle with the two leftover stars and some other smaller and bigger chunks of fabrics. The dark turquoise fabric along the top is the hanging sleeve for the show.

I machine quilted swirls in all the stars, like this:

 

There are 27 star blocks and I quilted a different design in the corner squares of each block. Kind of silly, but it was kind of a fun challenge to keep coming up with ideas.

The following photo shows how I quilted the borders. There are three borders on the top and 2 sides, and five borders on the bottom of the quilt. I did a figure 8 loop for the inner border, circles in the triangle borders, and a double feather in the wider, outer border.

 

Here's one more photo of the quilting:

 

 along with the little section of turquoise in the orange binding. 

Thanks again to Amy for hosting Blogger's Quilt Festival--head over there soon for more quilt eye candy. :)

Giveaway Day Winner!

The winner of my rainbow scrap pack is #63, Mamma Nene. Congratulations!

Star Quilt Top Finished

 

I didn't have great lighting for this... yes it's too sunny and I'm not complaining. Seattle was tied for "hottest major city in the US" yesterday at 89 degrees in our particular neck of the woods. I love it. It's not quite that warm today but it's still beautiful, bright, sunny, warm. I'll get a better quilt photo when I finish up all the quilting. This quilt is going to be part of a star quilt exhibit next month, over at Island Quilter with Seattle MQG.

Putting all the borders on wasn't the most fun ever but I love how it's turned out so far. I wasn't sure what to do as far as measuring the sawtooth borders, so I added the blue pieces to the ends with a little bit of extra length, and then pinned the borders on starting in the middle. Then I trimmed the ends. The plain borders were all measured and done the "right" way.

Next up is making the back and thinking about the quilting. Should I go buy some aqua thread or quilt it in white? Or both?

Giveaway Day!

Sew, Mama, Sew is having their semiannual giveaway week again! I have a rainbow scrap pack up for grabs. I might still add some pinks... maybe some selvedges too. 

 

To enter, just leave a comment on this post. I'd love to hear what you're working on or what your plans are for summer this year. I'm moderating comments (because the word verification is so annoying), so your comment won't show up until I approve it. I'm willing to ship international. The giveaway will close on May 10 at 5 p.m. Pacific time. I'll email the winner (and post the winner's name here) so make sure you're not a no reply blogger (or include your email address in your comment.) 

If you're new, welcome! I have a few quilting and clothing sewing tutorials linked up under the top banner, if you have time, or come back later. :) Good luck with the giveaways!

Don't forget to head over to Sew, Mama, Sew for many more chances to win. :)

Star Quilt Progress

 

I'm working on putting the rows together for my star quilt. I am going to use the leftover half-square triangles from making the stars for sawtooth borders. There are two sizes; not sure if I'm going to use the skinny ones or the wider ones, or maybe, some combination of both. 

I just realized I sewed the fish block sideways. I think I will leave it that way.

I've ordered solid light aqua fabric for inner and outer borders--I want to separate the pieced borders from the stars so they will be more visible.

What are you working on this week?

Granny Square Quilt, Finished

 

I finished this quilt a couple days ago. Maybe I should start keeping track of when I start new projects... this one took quite a while but I just made a few blocks at a time, and then used several of my blocks in my charity version of this same quilt. My sewing machine had a computer malfunction partway through quilting this. I was still able to quilt, but the computer screen is stuck on bobbin winding mode. I have a Janome MC4900... any other Janome users have this problem? It's been at the shop for a few days and I'm waiting to hear what the damage will be.

 

I free motion quilted a curvy corner-to-corner thing on all the squares, and then did a simple stipple in all the background space. We went to Utah for spring break earlier this month and my mom let me bring home her Juki for a while, so I finished the quilting using that machine. I am liking the Juki, it's so fast!

 

And here's the back. I started with the pink/orange section in the middle, I wasn't thinking of anything I could use that Amy Butler piece for, and then used a few other fabrics I am ready to be done with to make it wide enough. Then the green... the remains of some of my very first quilt shop fabric purchase are in that chunk. I have moved on from the dusty sage green love of the late 90s, for sure. After I finished up the green, I thought I was going to use a black and white Chinese character fabric for the rest of the back but it wasn't meant to be so I put together another section made from blues and then separated the 3 colors with white/white-ish 6.5" strips.

The binding is 4 colors--aqua, pink, purple, and yellow. I was going to do it all with the aqua/green Heather Bailey bead fabric but it would have used it almost all the way up so I mixed it up a little bit.

Thanks to Blue Elephant Stitches for the Granny Square Quilt tutorial and to traceyjay quilts for the setting triangles directions!

Bee Blocks

I've finished up my March blocks for do good stitches (because I'm doing all of them on time this year)

 

These were the easiest bee blocks ever. They are 12.5 inches, not small at all.

 

And I'm in charge for April so I have those ones done too. I'm requesting scrappy trip along blogs in red, yellow, and blue with your choice of neutrals (white, off white, tan, brown, whatever looks good). And an obviously dark or light strip down the center. 

 

 (Since I had to use that diagonal stripe in the above block, I decided green is ok too.)