Dancing Stars

In November I made a surprise quilt: a surprise both to me and to the recipient. I called it Dancing Stars.

Dancing Stars: about to be rolled up and taken to my friend

I heard in the middle of November that a good friend was to be operated on her back at the end of the month. Knowing that operations to the spine can require a long convalescence I decided to make her a large lap quilt to cheer her up and keep her warm during the process.

Not having much time I decided on a simple repetitive design and went into mass production mode first cutting all the pieces for the stars and then making all the triangle in a square units. Quite an experience for me to see all 64 grey triangles with their accompanying left and right side triangles stacked together to the left of my machine.

Most of the centre squares I cut from a single fabric with a large print to match the star points, but I didn't have large enough pieces of interest fabric in some of the colours, and so there are also 4-patches and hour glass blocks as star centres.

Detail, before washing

After completing the star units I added strips of background fabric to two sides of the units and arranged them as in Bonnie Hunter's pattern "Dancing 9-patches" , giving the stars room to dance while making the quilt big enough! The top was finished within four days of starting cutting! A personal record!

The quilting is straight lines, half a walking-foot's width from the seam lines in both directions. Extremely boring, but effective. This took longer to do than piecing the top, mainly because I didn't want to overburden my shoulders again.

All in all finished within the fifteen days; from buying the background and backing fabric to washing and drying the finished quilt. I gave it to my friend on 7 December which was in time, because her operation had been postponed for two weeks.

dimensions: 145cm x 145cm   (57" x 57")
star fabric: from stash 
background: Kona: Iron
backing: Free Spirit: Wales from Parson Gray World Tour
Quilting thread: Mettler 1358 50 wt.

Although his hasn't been my RSC project for 2019 (that is ready for me to quilt) 

I am linking up this finish using scraps. 

 

Click on the button to see more rainbow finishes.

Happy Sewing

Marly.