Here it is . All done! I quilted it close as the instructions wanted. I think it turned out beautiful! Even better than I expected. I have fallen in love with diagonal quilting. No marking was done. I eyeballed all of it.
I added their label and took the liberty of adding my own.
A nice sunny day for whipping this out. All told I have only 6 hours in this. So come on quilters sign up to make one for the kids!
Here is a close-up of the fabric. This is obviously a girlie quilt. It was really easy to sew. It only took 3 hours since it was all pre-cut. My only complaint is that the border stripe was not cut correctly. The top and bottom borders should have been cut lengthwise instead of across the WOF to allow the pattern to be going all the same way. Oh well...I did the best I could with what I was given.
Still it was a fast and easy pattern. I saved all the leftovers and feel I should send them back with the finished quilt. I think I will have to find a binding fabric in my stash. They have it planned out to be pillow finished. I have never tried that technique so will make binding instead.
Love working with panels. They are colorful and make such a fast quilt when you add a border. I bought this entire fabric line when it first debuted last year(?) or the year before. I knew it was destined to be a quilt for my GREAT grandson. Yes...you read that right...a great grandson. Anyway...just an hour or so to add a border to make it 48X57. Another hour or so to pin baste it and a nice afternoon of quilting to keep my mind off the fact that I was fasting before my scope, add the binding and one great quilt is born.
I even had the steel/chrome fabric for the backing. I still need to whip out a pillowcase and the November 4th birthday present is completed.
I was asked to teach a class on a quilt from the book Loose Change. The quilt's name is Jamie's Quilt. I made one that matches the pattern closely. I took it to my LQS to show one of the owners,Deb. She was my Secret Sister last year. She liked it so she put it up on the wall!!!! And asked me to teach the quilt at the LQS. WOW! I will be a quilt teacher!!! Can you tell I am excited??
Sorry I have no pics of the whole quilt but check out this wild stripe I used for one border on the purple Kaleidoscope quilt. I used this fabric as my one yard of "ugly" fabric giveaway at the last guild meeting. It truely is not ugly...just busy. I plan on adding a 4 1/2" border of one of the purples in the blocks. But another quilt butted in before I got to it. I will blog about that in my next post.
My Hubby was at the local hardware store and he actually paid money for this too cute container. It cost him $1.00. I think it should have been a give away but besides that it is a great container. I plan on using it for waste triangles or random fabric pieces at the sewing machine. The top just pops off. I washed it by hand and there are no smells or grease inside or out. I will glue a nice circle of fabric to the lid to cover that label.
First I would like to show all of you my biggest square ruler. I may not use it very often but when a large square ruler is needed there is no substitution. It is a Creative Grid. Do not know when or when I bought it. I have had it for eons. But knowing my buying habits I am sure I found it on the internet.
Here is the trimming process. I cut my corner triangles from squares measuring 6 1/2's.
Here are twelve of the fourteen blocks I made. They are not sewn together yet just slapped on the design wall. If you squint your eyes you can see two circles interwoven. I just love this pattern!
When starting this project I wound 5 bobbins with purple thread. I used all five bobbins! There is a lot of strip piecing before seeing the results. But they are sure worth the wait! I have a wild wiggly stripe fabric that is a tame yellow with tons of colors but mostly lavenders running the width of the bolt. I cut along the lengthwise of this fabric ending up with stripes running across the strips. Not only is this more pleasing to my eye, it is a better cut for borders. The lengthwise grain has less stretch than WOF grain. I learned this from one of Judy Martin's books. Yes, I have all she has written and am waiting on the next one!
Finally I have some plumes from my lonely clump of grass. This was planted last year and I feared it had died during all the snow and ice storms this last winter season. But it survived and actually thrived this summer. It produced these few plumes last week. I feel like a proud mother as Hubby does all the outside stuff...but I dug this hole and planted the grass myself. (well he helped with the digging) And even though our water costs have tripled, I faithfully watered my grass almost every morning.
This is a test block for another grand daughter's birthday. She loves purple. I did all the strips sets today and cut them into the wedge shapes. I hope to sew them this next week. I also did several strip sets in greens to mix into the purples. Cross your fingers....
All done and again wonderful hubby is holding it up for me. This quilt came about as a personal challenge to myself. I won a yard of "ugly" fabric at the last guild meeting. I wanted to prove to them that the fabric was BEAUTIFUL! Tomorrow night is the next guild meeting and I plan on bringing this for show and tell. I also need to find a yard of ugly fabric to offer as a prize. Yikes! I love all of my fabric and hate to say one is UGLY!
I mitered the corners. And the guitar stripe was so perfect for this project.
Here is a closeup of the easy straight line quilting I did on my Janome 6600P. I love this machine! I used a 40 weight gold top thread and a deep blue John Flynn's So Fine in the bobbin. This machine takes whatever thread combination I throw at her!
I asked my hubby to be the clothesline so show off my DONE Blue Star Struck. I debated on that orange slim border but really feel it frames the blocks well.
This is the quilt after block assembly but before the borders were added.
And here is the quilt being quilted. I went around each light and dark star. It was lots and lots of turning but the results were great!
I love that little orange border. I can only thank Bonnie Hunter for teaching me about using a contrast color to make the quilt body POP!
Can you see the white fuzz in the feeder? The fuzz is some of MaggieMae's fur from a brushing done outdoors. This squirrel (I do not know the sex yet) is one of Stubby's last litter. She showed three of them all her territory and is running off all the other squirrels. Anyway, this baby squirrel has a weird habit. It stuffs all that fur into it's mouth and runs around with it. Then drops it into the feeder, eats a bit and then grabs up the fuzz and runs some more. I think instinct is telling it to gather warm nest lining materials...but it has not figured out how to build a nest yet. So Stubby still has more work to do on these youngin's. They are still afraid of me when I step outside. Stubby comes to get her peanuts and they watch. Maybe they will tame down and maybe not. Only time will tell.
I moved this basket close to the front door in anticipation of filling it with candy treats for Halloween. Bess and Baby have claimed it. They are so much alike.
And here is my big Baby enjoying her turn in the basket.