Sunday, June 25, 2017

Sleeping Porch, Sparkling Stars



And now,
we've reached the third, and final installment
my family's favorite - Sparkling Stars


This one was (mostly) fun.


First,
I drew up a design on graph paper
using  30 8 inch blocks
in a 5x6 configuration,
and just plugged in different sizes and styles of stars,
making it so that I have very few seams to match up
when joining blocks, to speed the process up a smidge. 


I made notes of how many I needed of each,
and also how many filler squares,
and rectangles,
and which way the rectangles were oriented.

I chose fabrics for,
 and cut and pieced 
a few stars at a time.
I cut a few of the squares and rectangles as I went, too.


Over the course of a few weeks,
working 20 minutes here, and 40 there,
I managed to get most of the stars made,
and one Saturday in mid-May
Tyler let me have the day off from working on the house
(we are building a house on our property.
We've been at it a little over a year,
and the end,
though still a ways off,
is finally in sight)
and I laid out the quilt,
made a few more stars,
and cut the rest of the filler blocks,
rearranged things a few times,
and got the top sewn together.


This one got a fun big polka dot thrifted sheet backing,
and then I got right to work learning a new quilting motif - swirls.


After practicing for about an hour,
on both paper and fabric,
I felt confident enough to start quilting
for real.
I think the swirls are a great complement
to all of the angles of the stars,
and coupled with the warm and natural cotton batting,
they create great texture, too.


Sparkling Stars got a lawn binding also,
because it's just so delightfully soft,


This one is also in the shop,
and all proceeds from the sale of it
will go towards the purchase of a sewing machine for Rahab's Rope :-)


3 comments:

  1. I think this one is my favorite of those three. I just love all the different Stars :-) you did a great job compiling them.

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  2. I love your drafting plan - brilliant! And it turned out SO good. Maybe this is what I'll do with my Sleeping Porch.

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  3. Gorgeous! A star quilt is in my future - I love them so. (And yay for a day off!)

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