Custom Insanity

And I mean that in only the best way. You all know that I adore custom work over a mundane pantograph any day. So I had 2 clients over on Friday to drop off not one, but two of these truly gorgeous quilts. This is the first of them - it is Sue Garman's "Stars for a New Day" pattern. I love custom work. I REALLY love it when the piecing is so completely and absolutely perfectly done. You have to hunt really hard to find a tipped triangle or anything out of square. I saw the back of the quilt as she was removing it from the hanger, noticing how perfect it was pressed. I just knew the front would be eye-popping. And wait just a moment, if you really want to drop your jaw, listen to this. The regular design for this quilt is for an 85" square quilt. This one is done in miniature - it's only 44" square!
Yea, I know...Holy Tasmanian devil, can she piece, or what?! I love this row of stars on point. They are only about 2-1/2" square, and she called them her "3-hour stars", since each took 3 hours to make. This was a project she and her friend (you'll see that quilt next week probably) stitched over the last year. They drove from New Hampshire so I could get to quilt them.

I started the quilt yesterday. Things on tiny scale make challenges for the quilting - like where do I put that "bang"? I have a couple places in mind for some feathering and curved cross-hatching, but the quilt will be a LOT of SID and micro quilting to make elements pop. The first thing I unfortunately encountered as I had it all loaded, and had the top border mostly quilted, was that the first long side of the outer border was reversed. UGH! It would have made the quilting in the 4 corners not symmetrical. Since it was an outer border, and since I had not stitched any on it yet, I offered to fix it (not at my cost mind you), and she agreed. Two hours later I was back loading it and quilting. This row of stars is a little odd to design for since they are offset every other star, but this is what I came up with. It was not my plan to SID all 76 of these stars, but I think this will look best in the end.

And if you don't really have a good grip as to the size of these pieces, look at this...The stars barely measure 2". I initially thought I might be able to feather the white around the geese, but after seeing this first hand, I realized immediately that was nuts.

This is my week's project. It is fun and doable. I'd be dying from the ruler work if it were any larger!