Holiday Stars

Thirteen hours later, my quilt for a guild show in October is finally done. This is also the quilt I will take with me to the HQ retreat in 2 weeks. Some of you may recognize these blocks from last year from the Row Robin swap. I think I have used maybe half of the blocks from that swap. The others were ones I made from the same fabrics.
I wanted to custom quilt this top as nicely and as creatively as I could. I made it a goal that my sashings would not be quilted in an ordinary or boring fashion. I guess you could say I really wanted to think outside the box a little bit. In the end, I absolutely LOVE how the sashing quilting brings another dimension to the quilt of otherwise ordinary star blocks.

There is a proverbial ton of pebbling in this quilt...more than a mile's worth of thread went into the pebbling (and other quilting). I think that the pebbling and circles in the sashings pulls the quilt together.

This was the first time (I think) that I have pebbled down the spines of the feathers. I am considering doing this for a much larger border soon (10"), so I thought I'd try it out on something of mine first. First off, I just LOVE these feathers too. Secondly, I have feathered so much on this quilt and the last one I did that I am starting to see definite improvements in my backtracking accuracy. Having 2 batts helps that as well. I added a layer of cheapo-Joann's thinnest polybatt over my usual 80/20 batting. I do notice that this quilt is not a lofty as the last one, which had wool as the top layer instead of the poly. But the added layer makes all of the quilting that much more visible. Here's some closer looks at the blocks...

There are several repeated blocks on the top, and I tried to quilt them the same to be a bit more cohesive on the sampler. Still, the quilting does vary a lot.

The lighter green fabric is very pretty on this one - it has a slight metallic sheen. I wish I had more of this fabric throughout.

These friendship star variants were made by me. Quick, easy and not too boring.

I like the look of the curved cross-hatching. I quilted that on several blocks like this.

Here's another block I made several of (I think most of them went into the table runners last year though!). I love the touch of magenta, and the quilting too is very pretty.

I actually nearly forgot about a horrible near-disaster I had on this quilt. I was stitching along, doing the circles using a template when all of a sudden plexi-glass went all over the place. Aw crap! I actually hit the template with the needle! Now I have inadvertently hit the hopper foot on the templates a time or two and chipped the edge of the templates, but this was a mess. My needle immediately broke in half and kept on stitching for about an inch and a half before my brain registered what was happening and I could stop the machine. After removing the well jammed needle half, I realized the gross damage that stitching with half a needle causes. Thank goodness this quilt is actually mine and not a customer's. It damaged both sides of the fabric. It is along a seamline, thankfully, and is much less visible because of that. I treated the area with "no fray" and will probably forget about it! It will just go down into my chronicles of Longarm Quilting Adventures.

Here's my favorite view...notice how the circle quilting forms the stars at the point where there might be a stone in the sashing? I love when motifs are hidden and unplanned, and then discovered when the quilt comes off the frame.

And lastly, a few pictures from the back...

I must get it bound in the next 2 weeks. UGH. So many things on my plate right now. Before my trip...I must quilt at least 3 customer quilts, two table runners and if time permits, one of my aunt's quilts too. AND...do a little fixit job to Primavera before it gets sent off next week. First though, dinner and the kitchen are calling me.

Go sew and have a good weekend.