Stash Bee Star Quilt {Finished}

I am so excited to show of the finally finished version of this quilt!

First, a close up of the last block that I quilted -- the patterns I used are a three-leaf meander in the inner star and a petal motif with a baptist fan center. 

Here's the trimmed quilt before I put on the hanging sleeve and binding:

And here's the finished quilt!

Pushing myself to do all of the different quilting motifs was a great challenge and really helped me to improve my free motion quilting. But, I probably am going to going to anything this detailed for a while!

I used the backing fabric for both the binding and the hanging sleeve. The thread throughout is white.

The back is pretty neat looking as well. I had one extra block so I added it into the backing. It's neat to see all of the white thread on the burgundy background as well as all of the different patterns that end up overlapping the block on the back!

I lost track of how much thread I actually used in this quilt, but initially I was using nearly a whole bobbin to do one block. My plan is to hang this in my dining room (with the rabbits, but high enough that they can't nibble on it.)

Quilt Stats:
Name: Stash Bee Star Quilt
Size: 48" x 64"
Blocks: nested sawtooth stars, 16" and 8" blocks, blocks requested in 2015 in the Stash Bee
Quilting: all in white thread, various filler patterns

Sharing at Let's Bee Social, Needle and Thread Thursday, and Finish it up Friday!

PS. You can vote for my Argyle quilt in the "Best of Benartex" contest! Click here and like the photo to vote for me!

Back in Burgundy {Stash Bee Star Quilt}

One of the things that I have on my WIP spreadsheet (yes, I have it all in a spreadsheet) is the date that I last worked on a project. I started the list last December when I put together my first Brutally Honest post here on the blog. Now that it's the end of September, one of the things staring me in the face is the group of projects that I haven't worked on since before I started the list. Some of these are scrappy on-and-off projects, but I decided to buckle down and try to finish my 2015 Stash Bee Quilt.

Here's what the top of this quilt looked like when I put it together:

I decided to quilt this quilt with different FMQ motifs in each star. You can see the first post of the block close ups here and the second post here. I had also quilted some of the small stars but hadn't chronicled them here until now:

Top center stars:
FMQ motifs used: lemon slices, branched feathers

Right side grouping of small stars:

FMQ motifs used: swirly suns, echoed hearts, layered meander, echoed wiggle

So this more-than-half quilted quilt has been sitting on a shelf for at least 18 months without being touched because I got frustrated coming up with new FMQ patterns since I was trying to use a different one in each star. I had four large stars and two small stars to go and now only have one large star to go, along with some pebbles in a few places.

Here are the three newly finished large stars:

Here are the two small stars:

Now I only have one start left and then it will be time to trim and bind this quilt!

Stitched Stars

I've been able to make a little bit of progress over the last week on quilting my star quilt -- two more completed! Last week I did the two stars on the "left" side of the quilt.

Left column #2

Center star: Wandering clover with four petals instead of three

Outer star: A combination of Shadow Waves and Striated Earth

Left column #3

Center star: Lightning Bolt

Outer Star: Mussel Shell

This week while I've been snowed in, I got one more large star done.

Right column #3

Center star: Pointsettia

Outer Star: Originally invisioned this as Sea Algae but it ended up more like Cucumber Vine

These patterns were all fun to do! The lightning blot gives some very fun texture and it might be fun to try it on a little larger scale. I'm getting a little burned out on all of that pebbling so I've had to take some breaks from it. The next section I will be working on are 8 small stars.

Linking up at WIP Wednesday and Let's Bee Social!

WIP Wednesday: FMQ for Days.

I started working on the free motion quilting for my 2015 Stash Bee quilt, which is made up of large star blocks. Here's a picture from when the top was completed.

My intention is to quilt each star with different free motion fillers and patterns, and then the background (regardless of whether if it is pink or blue) will be pebbled. This is a big project (despite it being a smaller quilt) intended to stretch my skills and to produce something show-worthy. I'm going big or going home with this one.

I now have three blocks done and am excited to show you each one! Some of the quilting is hard to see, but hopefully you can pick out most of the designs!

Center block:
Innermost star: meander
Middle star: loops
Outermost star: wiggly echoing of the medium star

Center bottom block:
Inner star: overlapping lines similar to Matrix (first time using this pattern)
Outer star: swirls and curls

Center top block:
Inner star: 8 leaves/petals (which are really hard to see in this picture!)
Outer star: Echo Shell (first time using this pattern)

I can quilt the star area of an entire block and start the pebbling outside of the star with one bobbin. I need a second bobbin for each block to finish (or nearly finish) the pebbling in the background and "connect" to the previous blocks or next blocks I plan to quilt. That's a lot of thread!

One difficulty is dealing with the "pointedness" of each star -- sometimes it makes using certain fillers difficult. When I did the Matrix-like quilting, I had to do a lot of back tracking to be able to quilt the star points. Doing the leaves in the third block was easier because the leaf points extended into the star points, which is unfortunately hard to see. I really liked the Echo Shell pattern. It did take a little forethought to get it into the points correctly, but I think it turned out awesome!

Now that I have the three center most blocks completed, I am going to do the middle two stars (or group of stars) on each side.

Linking up for WIP Wednesday, Let's Bee Social, and Free Motion Mavericks!