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.

2018 FAL Q1 list

Once again the Finish-A-Long is open and sewers, knitters and crocheters have been invited to submit their lists of ongoing projects they hope to get finished in this first quarter of 2018.

I don't have any ongoing projects that will be finished within the next three months, but I do have a number of completed quilt tops. If I can finish one a month that will be good going, so here is my list of three tops plus a small item I haven't yet started sewing:

1. En Provence, Quiltville mystery 2016-17
2. Bears' Rainbow Square Dance, RSC 2016
3. The Sky at Night, RSC 2015, which is complete, there are no longer two missing blocks.
4. Blue/aqua scrappy basket from a pattern by Fiona at BubzRugz     

1.  En Provence, Quiltville mystery 2016-17

2. Bears' Rainbow Square Dance, RSC 2016

3. The Sky at Night, RSC 2015

4. Scrappy baskets: waiting for blue

It is really shameful that these have been lying around for up to two years. I hope I can get this lot out of the boxes and onto beds and laps and in use!

I'm linking to Leanne at "She Can Quilt" where there are already more than 90 participants with a finish list.

Happy Sewing

Marly.

Starry pink

October's colour in the Rainbow Scrap Challenge is pink.

Cutting 2" squares to make this generated some more scraps for making the basket. As I still need to make a blue version of this block I also cut blue squares and started joining them in pairs as leaders and enders while I was assembling this one. I'm learning!

This week I also decided to cut a 2" strip and a 2.5" strip from every FQ I buy, as these are the strip sizes I use most. I'm not sure that this is a wise step; I don't want to find myself running out of fabric partway through a project! Only time will tell!

And here, finished this afternoon, is my pink basket:

I love seeing all the baskets lined up, and they are SO useful! How did I ever manage without a scrap saving system?! Finally I think I'm getting organised!

I'm linking to

 

Click on the button to see more pink delights. 

Happy sewing

Marly.

September was the orange month ...

... in the Rainbow Scrap Challenge, and I have just caught up with two of the rainbow projects I started in January.

I showed the orange basket last week:

and this week I finished an orange 7x7 patch with wonky star.

I made a few at the beginning of the year but work got very busy in the spring leaving me very little time for sewing. I shall be picking up the projects in 2018 and hope to have more success.

I also made an orange wonky star for the Dutch Modern Quilt Guild block-a-week project. (I'm way behind with that too!)

In the meantime pink (October's colour) has now taken over my sewing room. I'm heading off there to start sewing my pairs of 2" pink squares together for the next 7x7 patch.

I'm linking up to 

Click on the button to visit Angela where everyone else is in the pink!

Happy sewing

Marly.