Lonestar WIP Finally Finished!

Well, I knew it had been a long time, but after looking back in the blog archives the last time I really worked on his quilt was April of 2013! Ouch. It's been folded up, basted and partially quilted ever since then.  What held me up was filling in all the negative space around the stars I had straight-line quilted. I had only started FMQ in January of that year and I lacked the confidence to do anything more than a stipple, and I wanted to do something more "special" that stipple!

Over a year and a lot of FMQ later I have decided that the stipple is pretty awesome, especially when it comes to finishing a project quickly! So I unfolded this baby, dusted it off, and stippled in the rest of the background.

The pieced star was made based on Better Off Thread's tutorial. Please forgive the less than stellar meeting of the points! There are some cute fabrics in there, including the little mini marching elephants I used in this quilt.  I quilted the star by outlining both sides of the seam using my walking foot as a guide. Doing that gave me the idea to quilt a couple more partial stars in the negative space using the same motif.

This kind of quilting is really hard to get a picture of! There is most of a star on the upper right of the quilt and a corner of one on the lower right.

Wilson assisted with pictures, as per usual. As you can see, I did indeed do a loose stipple in the space around the stars.

I love this pieced back almost as well as the front. Because I was using brown thread on the front, and didn't want to fight with the FMQ tension trying to get it just perfect I opted to use brown on the back too. The contrasting thread shows through all the quilting designs.

The Michael Miller Wooden Horses came in a scrap pack from Hawthorne Threads and I have used every stitch of that fabric! Love those little horsies with the doily type motif on them.

The large textured aqua came from Connecting Threads, don't remember exactly what color it was. That orange plaid came from a scrap pack, too. And of course there's the IKEA number fabric.  The quilt is kind of a funny shape, about 55"x70", so it's long and skinny.

I have had in mind to give this one to some friends of mine if I ever got it done... but I think I might give them a choice of a couple different quilts I have on hand. Every time I have done that people surprise me with their choice!

For the first time in a long time I have no quilts sitting around partially quilted and unfinished! What finishes are you celebrating this week?

Linking to Finish it Friday at Crazy Mom Quilts.

One step forward, Two steps back

So this is what I've been doing in my evenings this week.  I have a couple of partially-quilted quilts which became UFOs because I began quilting them and then realized my plans weren't going to work.  Un-sewing is not my preferred way to spend my sewing time, (hence these have been sitting idle for a while... months?) but it's the perfect way to spend an evening when you're exhausted and just want to watch TV and do something mindless with your hands.

Tomorrow I'll have the post up about finishing the sail boat quilt :) Happy Hump Day!

Almost-wholecloth Quilting

How does one photograph whole cloth quilting? I think that's going to be a running theme with this quilt. Tonight crappy indoor light is the best I can do, unfortunately. Once it's finished I promise to get good pictures.

close up of the quilted star

So far I have quilted the pieced star and one of the stars on the body of the quilt (it's up on the upper right.) I have another partial star marked in chalk on the bottom right to quilt.  Once I get all the stars quilted I am going to fill in the open areas with some FMQ. I haven't decided what design I will go with yet.

The back is fun; I decided to make the quilt somewhat reversible.  I am using brown in the bobbin so the quilting shows up great on the back.

Ready to get back to work. Linking to WIP Wednesday, go check out everyone's projects!

Lonestar Growing on my Design Wall

Well, I was worried that I wouldn't have anything new to show today, but then I got busy Sunday afternoon and made some progress on my off-center Lonestar.  It's amazing how productive I can be when I have a test to be studying for!  Now that I have filled in the Y-seams I just need to add a few more yards of the brown and I'll have a completed top.

Linking up to Design Wall Monday at Patchwork Times.  Be sure to go see what everyone else is working on!

Color Party on the Wall!

Is it Monday again already? How did that happen?! The weeks just seem to be going by faster and faster lately. I did manage to get a little bit done last week. There are two projects going on the design wall currently.

The off center lonestar is based on this one by Better off Thread.  I pulled the fabrics based on colors from an argyle fabric, but didn't actually find anywhere to use the inspiration fabric in the quilt! Funny how that happens sometime. Anyway, I LOVE the colors of that star. So different and so bold.  I am planning to use a brown solid for the rest of the top and place the star as it is on my design wall, toward the bottom left.  The quilting is going to be so much fun to do on this one.

The project with all the HSTs is making use of my Architextures charm pack.  Last night I started sewing up the rest of the HSTs; what is on the wall is about 1/3 of what I need.  The rest of the HSTs are much more blue and purple heavy, so hopefully the final quilt will end up being blue, purple, and cream with pops of color.

Here we go on another crazy week.  Hope you find some time it sew!  I'm linking up to Design Wall Monday at Patchwork Times!

Quick picture post

Two projects going at once on the design wall.  Architextures on top (only 276 HSTs to go!).  On bottom I'm working on an off center lonestar like this one.