The Border Quilt QAL {Friendship Stars}

It's a slightly delayed installment of the Border Quilt QAL! If you haven't joined in yet, there's still plenty of time -- check out all of the information on Patterns By Jen.

The last trip around the quilt added sawtooth stars, and this round adds friendship stars! This will be my last round of blocks for my version of the quilt.

After adding the spacer borders, I set to work on the friendship stars. As when I made my sawtooth stars, I separated my scraps into light and dark piles. I had a little marathon cutting session and cut the block parts for all 42 friendship stars. I pinned the parts for each block together to make it easy for me to work on a block or two at a time when I had a few extra minutes.

All of the block parts stacked up is nearly 8" tall! I even had to add in extra fabric -- I had to add in a light green print as an extra "light" fabric because I had used up so much of the light fabrics I had originally pulled for this project. I've been pretty busy outside the sewing room, so these have been very slow going.

However, my pre-cut blocks have made it very easy to pick up a set of block parts and work on one block at a time. Last week, the majority of my sewing time was the few minutes I had between getting home from work, starting dinner, and my husband getting home from work. Saturday I finished up the blocks and started laying out the blocks.

I ended up with a lot more blue stars than I had anticipated! I did my best to both mix up the block colors and block background colors so the same colors weren't too close to one another, while also making it look mostly random. This is a hard task! It was much easier to arrange the sawtooth star blocks because there were half as many!

My quilt top is now finished -- hooray! (Even if I had to move furniture and turn on every lamp in my living room this morning before work to take this picture!)

There are a couple stars with different centers from their star points -- this again was a "make it work" decision to stretch my fabric. I thought I would only have enough fabric to make the sawtooth stars and I ended up with enough to make the complete round of friendship stars with the help of one extra background fabric. I thought this was going to be a wall hanging (a large wall hanging!) but now it is most certainly throw sized. I'm not planning on adding any more to this quilt, but I could always change my mind!

Happy Tuesday! Sharing at Linky Tuesday and Let's Bee Social! And Needle and Thread Thursday too!

Christine's Blue Kitchen {Finished Quilt}

This weekend, I was able to quilt my blue Island Batik version of our Christine's Kitchen pattern! As an Island Batik Ambassador, I am provided with samples of various lines of Island Batik fabrics to use and share with you!

For the quilting, I briefly considered using multiple thread colors but ultimately decided to use the same thread throughout. I used Connecting Threads 50 wt. in Silver.

Like my original Christine's Kitchen quilt, I did meanders in the background. In my original quilt, I did loops inside of all of the dishes, but this time around, I used a variety of simple free motion quilting motifs in the cups, vases, and pots. I did a lot of loops, swirls, and squiggles, but I tried to mix it up a little bit.

Working with the small spaces was a little limiting but other than the sugar and creamer pair on the bottom shelf, the rest of the dishes are all quilted differently.

The backing fabric is the larger floral print (used in the teapot above!) and the binding fabric is the speckle print (used in the coffee pot below!). I also used the floral print for the hanging sleeve. Because this quilt finishes at 36" x 39", you only need a single width of fabric for the backing!

I didn't do any quilting in the applique sections to help it stand out. For the border, I used a larger swirly flower filler.

I used one of my decorative stitches to stitch down the binding so it will be extra secure!

Originally I had planned to give this as a gift, but now I'm feeling a little selfish and might want to keep it. 

Don't forget to check out the Island Batik Facebook page to see what all of the other Ambassadors are working on this month!

Project Stats:

Name: Christine's Blue Kitchen
Pattern: Christine's Kitchen by HBD
Size: 36" x 39"
Fabrics: London Fog by Island Batik and grey solid
Quilting: Various motifs in grey thread from Connecting Threads
Future: Might be a gift, might not!

Sharing at Let's Bee Social, Needle and Thread Thursday, and Brag About Your Beauties!

Baseball Baby Quilts {Tops for Twins}

After what was a momentary lull, I am back to having three baby quilts on my to-do list. The first two are the twin baseball-themed quilts using these fabrics:

I decided to use our new Boot Scootin' Baby pattern for these quilts. This is my first time using this pattern.

I also decided that I didn't need to be fancy with these quilts -- the two tops will be exactly the same.

The number one complaint (if you can even call it a complaint) that we seemed to get about the Ready, Set, Soar pattern is that it doesn't use 2.5" strips. Boot Scootin' Baby does use 2.5" strips so it does have that perk.

I did a lot of chain piecing over the weekend! I was about halfway done with the strip piecing when I snapped this picture.

A reminder -- when you're sewing strip sets, remember to sew with the same fabrics on top or bottom to reduce stretch and wonk! I always sewed with either the yellow or blue print on top and the white or red print on the bottom. My strip set ended up very straight and my selvages lined up well too!

I have both of the strip bases done but I only had time to slice and insert the applique background for one of the two quilts. The quilt is a little long because I used a full width of fabric for my strips instead of trimmed down strips. I'll trim the bottom before I do the quilting so that both quilts are the exact same size.

Now I have to decide what I'll use for the applique section. Part of me wants to move forward and simply add the applique sections and get these finished, but there's also part of me that wants to wait and add the names of the boys once they are born. But that delays quilting, binding, and mailing so I'm going back and forth on what to do.

Happy Monday! Sharing at Linky Tuesday!

Christine's Kitchen 2.0 {Finished Quilt Top}

My Chrstine's Kitchen top -- version 2.0! -- is now ready for quilting!

I sewed together the three out of four of the rows of blocks right away. The last remaining row is the row containing the two flower blocks which stick out of the vases.

For my two applique blocks, I decided to make white daisies with blue centers. I made my flowers larger than the applique templates in the pattern, so I made two flowers for each block instead of three for each block. These fabrics, as well as the green stems and leaves, came out of my stash of Island Batik scraps. As an Island Batik Ambassador, I am provided with samples of various lines of Island Batik fabrics to use and share with you!

For the machine applique, I used a blanket stitch around my flowers, stems, and leaves. For the leaves, I used a dark olive green Aurifil thread. For the flower centers and petals, I used a navy blue thread. I used a wider stitch width for the petals and a narrower stitch width for the centers.

After adding the applique blocks to the second row, I added the set of sashings that are added before the pieced border.

Instead of using the background fabric in the pieced border, I decided to alternate between the light and dark colors from the strip pack. I had to cut down the strips from 2.5" to 2", but strip piecing the pieced border was a very quick process. I was able to use up the scraps I had from paper piecing and I think I used about 10 different fabrics in the pieced border.

I'll be using the remainders of my two blue yardages for the backing, binding, and hanging sleeve. This is the next top that I'll be quilting -- I have a batting from Hobbs that was provided in my July Island Batik Ambassador box that I'll be using. I am leaning towards quilting this one with grey thread and I have a few different grey options.

Happy Wednesday!

Sharing at Let's Bee Social and Needle and Thread Thursday!

Radiant Jewel {Starry Night}

When last I posted about my Radiant Jewel quilt, I was in the midst of making all of the four patches for the star blocks and pieced border.

Once I was able to finish all of the four patches, I started working on my eighteen star blocks. These went together relatively quickly and were easy to work on for a few minutes here and there. I think these came out really lovely and I am happy I decided to make all of the large center four patches the same for these blocks.

I also have all of the pieced border units to put together. My next task is to do the background fabric cutting necessary to complete the pieced borders and to make the 20 or so HSTs for the pieced border units. 

This will be set aside momentarily to work on some baby quilts and finish my Island Batik project for October. I have quite a bit of quilting to do over the next few weeks -- I quilted some secret sewing this weekend for the test baby quilt I made while on retreat. Here's the backing:

Happy Monday! Don't forget to enter to win some Island Batik fabric -- the giveaway will close on Friday!

Sharing at Main Crush Monday and Linky Tuesday!