Finished spinning!

I finished my spinning stars quilt last weekend and finally got around to taking some pictures. Katy at I'm a ginger monkey started a spinning stars QAL. I decided on a whim that this would be the perfect quilt to give to my 8 year old sister for Christmas.

 

Do you ever listen to the NPR radio program "Says You"? It's a word game show and recently one of the questions was: What is the difference between easy and simple. Well this pattern is simple but NOT easy. There are a lot of bias cuts to deal with and seams meeting up all over the place. I also decided to make it even more complicated by making my stars all different colors. This meant that I had to make the quilt block by block. It is not chain piecing compatible.

 

Quilt deets:

Name- Spinning Stars {and Geese}

Pattern - Spinning stars from Anna Maria Horner

Size - 60" x 60"

fabrics -  various prints from The center triangles are made with some Tula, a habitat print, domestic bliss and an art gallery print. Probably something else in there too. The solid octagons are either Oakshott cottons (blue, purple, olive) and connecting threads solids and mirages. The stars are  domestic bliss, flea market fancy and two connecting thread prints (the honeycomb and blue dot fabs).
Piecing - paper pieced each block using a foundation paper piecing template I designed. (final block size is 15" instead of 18")

quilting - free motion with Aurifil Vareigated thread from the eat your fruits and veggies pack
Binding - Parisville eyedrops machine bound. 

Here's a close up of the quilting. I love the way the vareigated thread blends in or stands out depending on the color of the ring. I left the centers bare so they would pop out.

The back was pieced with mostly Kona Gray to show off the quilting. I added in some leftover prints because I ran out of gray didn't want the back to be boring. But seriously, I like pieced backs best.


Quilted loops

And quilted stars. You can really appreciate the quilting on the back.

I echo quilted the geese and made a spiral in the center. It looks like the geese are circling the sun (aka a star). This is, like, sooooo meta.



 

This quilt took a long time (for me) to finish. Look back at the progress here:

Introduction, template test, fabrics selection
First block
Top finished
Quilting

In the end it was all worth it. It is one of my favorite finishes and I believe the worthy recipient will enjoy it for years to come. I tried not to make it too childish so she could grow into it. Now comes the hardest part - mustering up the energy to get it to the post office.

The scraps from this quilt (over 13 ozs of scraps people) were given away as my Sew Mama Sew giveaway. Linking up with Plum and June.