{Post #90} Ribbon Machine Quilting

I am on the last row of stars on the machine quilting for my Charming Stars quilt.  Here is what inspired the design in the sashing and around the stars.  It's from the quilt show on 6.13.13.  I don't like the quilt or the colors, but the quilting was an inspiration!

Makes a very soft and supple quilt.  :)

{Post #89} Quilting on Charming Stars

Here is the beginning of my Charming Stars quilting.  I have done nearly two rows out of the four.  I will go back at the end and do all the inner and outer border quilting.  It's too much back and forth to do it as I roll it up.  

My design is simple.  I like quilts to be supple.  Yesterday I went to a quilt show in a tiny town west of here.  Most of the quilts were STIFF with dense quilting that was magnificent.  So magnificent that the piecing and pattern were overlooked.  I like to showcase the fabrics and pattern.

Here is the design I'm doing in all the blocks.  My formerly drawn pattern has now translated to fabric.  I am doing a ribbon meander around each star with ribbons in the sashing as well.

I will see my sister next month, so I figured I better get crackin' on this.  I did a hooked feather in the outer border. I REALLY like those.  Very easy and so impressive looking.  I did one on here:

{Post #88} Quilt Center Finished for Latest Surprise

I made my outer border 5" unfinished instead of 2-1/2" like the pattern suggested, so my quilt top is a teensy bit bigger than the original, finishing at 77" square.  Here is it.  Hope to start quilting soon:

{Post #87} Webbing the Top

I had a bunch of questions about webbing a quilt top.  It is one of the many things I learned from Bonnie Hunter at quiltville.com.  It is a means of picking up one's quilt pieces from the design wall or floor and having them in one stack. It keeps them from getting turned around or mixed up while sewing them together.  After the horizontal rows are sewn, they are attached to the next row down with a couple threads, making it even more difficult to mix them up.  Bonnie's page here explains it perfectly:

http://quiltville.blogspot.com/search?q=webbing

I have just two more rows to sew on the center of the quilt, then the cream and the outermost border.

I am also showing the design I intend to quilt in the sawtooth stars.  I have a sashing design picked out and will likely just meander in the star backgrounds.

{Post #86} Charming Stars Webbed

Got this top webbed this morning.  My dear husband has been ill all week (sinus/allergy stuff).  We've been off our usual game.  After the supreme busy-ness of last week, it's been kind of nice to slow down.  Trouble is, we have all but stopped.  I just now realized (at 2:10 PM) that I have not eaten one bite of food all day.  I had a cup of water!  <sigh>

Anyway, here's the Charming Stars quilt webbed.  What that means is that the seams in each row are sewn and the rows are webbed together.  

There will be a cream outer border, then a brown one to match the cornerstones.  I just hit upon a quilting idea for the sawtooth stars.  Look at my Pinterest board for machine quilting.  It's the design in the exquisite Caribbean blue stars.

{Post #85}

This AM, after a long break, I sewed a little (OK--a lot).  I was downstairs doing laundry all morning, so I sewed some, too.

I am making this quilt for my sister... http://www.modabakeshop.com/2010/10/charming-stars-quilt.html.

Here's my rendition.  All Thimbleberries for the colors, of course.  The cream is a Moda print I purchased from her years ago.  Hope she likes it.  When I pinned the pattern on Pinterest, she commented "I'll take one of these."  So I am making her one.

The picture shows a sawtooth star of a slightly smaller size that I'm working on from all shirts.  It's on my regular blog, www.shelbystitcher.blogspot.com.  

I have all the units pieced, just sewing the stars together now.  The charming stars blocks are 15" square.