Blogger's Quilt Festival

I am excited that I not only finished one of my favorite quilts in time to take to quilt guild last night, but just in time for the Blogger's Quilt Festival!



When I first saw the Made in Cherry quilt pattern (free!), I just loved it. I love stars, and hadn't made a star quilt yet, and loved this one giant star! I wanted to make it coordinate with the colors of our living room, and make it modern. When we added on last year we painted the new living room a pale grey. One of my favorite fabrics to include in a quilt is Kona Coal, so I wanted something that would coordinate with that. Hubby is not a big fan of floral prints, so something geometric would be ideal. And since I don't often get to the LQS with all three kids, a bundle of coordinating fabrics would be perfect! I love Ann Kelle's prints, and her Remix fabrics are so modern and fresh. I purchased two bundles on etsy, and started cutting!



I laid out my rows in advance, to try to eliminate having prints touch. Unfortunately, I didn't keep track of the top and bottom of my quilt after I had my rows joined, so when I added the star points I had some matching. Not a big deal though! (But a good excuse to finally create a design wall of some sort!)



I quilted 1/4" on each side of the seam within the star. Then I copied Megan and quilted my lines within the solids 1/2" apart. I just eyeballed them, so they are not perfect, but I love the way it looks! I used white thread for the interior of the star and grey for within the solids. Quilting the straight lines took a while, but was actually pretty easy since I wasn't wrestling the entire quilt through the machine.



It took about an hour to quilt each solid section and a few hours for the interior of the star. One of the longest times it's taken me to quilt a quilt (but it is a pretty big quilt - finishing at 80"x80"). I did it all on my home machine!



For the backing I pulled some black/white/grey fabrics from my stash and pieced them together. I really like it!

I used an aqua fabric with tiny black scattered dots for the binding (from JoAnn's). I'm trying to branch out on my binding - I typically use a fabric from the front, or fabric that matches the backing or a neutral solid. I really like how the binding matches, but isn't a featured print. I also like how it highlights the aqua prints within the star and pulls it out a bit.

Love this quilt! Now if it would just cool off so I could use it! Probably will be waiting a while for that!