Bloggers' Quilt Festival - Lone Star

Amy is sponsoring another Bloggers' Quilt Festival, so I'm taking advantage of the incentive to write the story of one of my quilts.
 

This quilt started because I needed and quick and easy quilt for the monthly colour challenge from Vicki and Judy.  I wasn't overly inspired by the palette this time around, but I wanted to keep up my record of making a quilt for every challenge.  So, I dug through my stash for some fabrics to match the palette, and then cast about for a pattern to use.


Because I was using stash, the amount of fabric I could use in the design was limited.  So I decided to make a small donation quilt.  And in my web surfing, I saw some long star quilts and latched onto that idea.  Perfect!  I made a lone star some time ago, but another one would be fun - and this time I'd make it simple - just the basic lone star center, without the fractured frame that my first had.

I did some quick calculations based on the fabric in my pile, and determined that I could cut 3" diamonds and would have plenty of each fabric colour for it.  What I neglected to do was to calculate the overall size of a lone star, made with 3" diamonds.  Apparently the answer is about 55" across.  So much for my "small donation quilt".

But I persevered, because it was coming together beautifully.  And despite the size, it was still just a lone star, with the same number of pieces it would have had if I'd made it smaller.  Plus, I was deciding that I loved the colours!  Amazing how a palette can change, once you start working with it.

Once the star was done, I realized that my stash searching had not turned up enough of any fabric for the background.  I headed off to the LQS with cream on my mind.  I thought that would be a nice safe background and set off the colours well.  Well, when I got there, I looked at the creams and realized my mistake very quickly.  They made the quilt look insipid.  Not the right choice at all.

So I looked to the ladies at the shop for inspiration and suggestions - and this is what we came up with.  A rich dark purple set off the fabrics beautifully.  And, bonus factor, it matches the missing colour in the colour palette!  And I hadn't even mentioned that when we started digging for fabrics - I guess Vicki really does know what she's talking about with these palettes :)

Of course, once the star was finished, I realized that I did not want a square quilt.  So I came up with top & bottom borders to turn it into a twin-size bed cover.

Back to the store - I was out of pink and yellow fabric, since I hadn't planned on this addition at the start.  Couldn't match the fabrics exactly, but I I like what I found.

And then the quilting.  I bought a long arm machine in July, and this quilt was for the July colour challenge - so it became one of the first full-size quilts I loaded up. 

The backing is a brightly coloured batik that I purchased several months earlier for a different quilt.  I decided I didn't like it there, but it seemed perfect for this one.

I stuck with a fairly simple quilting design - straight lines in the diamonds, and a simple leaf & flower pattern in the background.  The new machine performed beautifully, and the quilt was quickly unloaded and bound.


And here is it.  Complete and ready for use.  For now it resides on my son's bed part-time while he's away at school.  When he comes home, he has his own quilt and this one goes into storage.

Click the link to hop over to the quilt festival and have look at some of the spectacular quilts.

Design Wall Monday - Oct 29

My design wall has a new quilt on it today.  This is the one I've been avoiding for a while, trying to get up the nerve to cut into it.  Finally tackled it on the weekend, and the center is just waiting for me to stitch it together now.  I picked up something that might work as borders, but we'll see after I put the center together.  First, it must gel a bit longer to make sure nothing looks out of place/needs changing.

Drop by Judy's blog for more design wall activity today.  And if you are in the path of Hurricane Sandy, stay safe.

Stash Report - Oct 27

Two of my ongoing projects are wrapped up now.  Neither looks like the original intention, but I've ended up with 4 donation quilts from them.  I showed the Mondy Mystery the other day, when I declared it finished. Here are the 3 quilties I made from the Bloggers' BOM squares.

2 yards - borders for BOM quilts
2 yards - strips for next quilt
6 yards - backing for checkerboard

That's 10 yards out this week.  Quite a good week, when I didn't think I'd done very much :)  Now I just need to finish quilting the checkerboard, so I can put some of my mystery quilts on the long arm before guild this month.

Stash usage this year: 172 3/4 yards out.

Check out Patchwork Times to see how everyone's stashbusting efforts are going. 

On the Needles - Oct 26

My yellow scarf is progressing nicely.  It's almost long enough now, but the Loopy Ewe's challenge requires 400 yards.   So I'll just keep knitting until I run out of yarn.

I'm also planning my next project.  I still have the blue scarf on the needles, but I'm tired of scarf knitting right now, so I picked my next project.  Another pair of socks, this time from a laceweight yarn.  Someone told me that hand-knit socks hurt their feet, and I can understand that now that I have a few pairs.  The yarn ridges do make a noticeable pattern, especially when walking in just socks.

So I thought maybe a lighter yarn and smaller needles would solve the problem.   My goodness 2mm needles are small.  At 10 stitches and 14 rows to an inch, these socks are going to be slow going. I think I'll probably stick with plain knitting, since none of the sock patterns I've seen are designed for this gauge.  I spent some time last night finding the colour repeat, and lining up the 2 balls so that I can hopefully get matching socks this time.

Drop by Judy's blog to see what everyone else is knitting.  And check out yesterday's post for a peek at the reveal of the 2 mystery quilts I've been working on.

Mysteries Revealed

It's almost the end of the month, and 2 mystery quilts are coming to an end.  First, we have the Monday Mystery from Little Bits of This and That.  It's not quite done - there are border strips sitting around still.  But I think I'm going to stop here, because it's almost the perfect size for a quiltie donation.  26" rather than 24", but I think that's OK (I guess I'd better check that out next time I go to guild).

It's certainly bright.  If I'd known what it was going to be, I would have picked lighter "darks".  The joys of a mystery, I guess.  I'm going to quilt animals in each of the solid blocks, and I'll have to figure out the rest.

And then, the Blogger's Block of the Month.  The final month came out today, and it's setting time.  This is what it is supposed to be - with sashing, corner stones, and a piano key border.  But the final quilt is about 50" square, which is an odd size (for me).  So I'm thinking about splitting the blocks up and making 3 donation quilts out of them.

That will give me these 3 layouts.  The on-point one is a tad large - maybe I'll skip borders on it to keep it close to the 24" size.   I've cut the setting triangles and sashing from the dark backgroun - I hope someone likes dark for a baby quilt.

The final 2 will get frames around each block, then sashing and borders to stretch them to 24".  Unless I come up with something more creative while working on the other quilts.  But for now, it's time to head out for a couple of hours, because it's dancing night!

Work in Progress

I'm quilting my way through my first *big* quilt on my long arm.  This one is queen/king size (95x95").  Took me a while to get up the nerve to load it, but I'm almost 1/2 done now and so far so good.  It's still loaded, so there isn't a good picture, but here's a peek at it.

The dark squares are being quilted in black, and I'll do a second pass to quilt the cream squares in a matching colour.  If you look closely at this picture, I've marked the quilting design in a couple of the blocks.  The large squares are all 5.5", so I'm doing a fairly simple design in them - I don't want to over-quilt this one.

Here you can see a little piece of the backing and the design on one of the blocks. I think that one is one of my better motifs.  They definitely aren't perfect, but I think with the matching thread and a trip through the washer it's going to look nice.

Design Wall Monday - Oct 22

Poor design wall.  Just only lonely little block this week.  But at least there's one!  As of yesterday morning, there was absolutely nothing on the wall.

I have 2 quilts I want to start, but I keep avoiding them.  I think I'm nervous about how they are going to come out.  I've been collecting batiks, kind of randomly for a while.  I pulled 2 sets for quilts, and I keep rethinking the colour combinations.  I may finally be almost there - one I'm pretty happy with.  The other I need a couple more dark fabrics, and enough of one for borders, so that is going to mean another trip to the store.

And now the question is, do I start it, and add the borders once I buy them.  Or buy the fabric first, in case I can't find the "right" border and have to adjust the other fabrics to match.  I think I know the answer - but maybe I'll get up the nerve to cut into the other quilt this week, now that I have found the pattern again.  Well, the picture.  I have no pattern.  So I guess I can delay a bit longer while I work out all the sizes.

Check out Judy's blog for more design walls today.