This is the finished Christmas version of Scrappy 4 Patch Stars, Charlotte Hawkes’ 2021 mystery quilt. It finished at 63″ square. I was inspired to do this version after seeing one by Lorraine on the Facebook group.
I quilted it all over with Superior’s Magnifico, 40 wt., shiny poly thread.
Yuri wants to know, what are you quilting lately?
Were linking to Confessions of a Fabric Addict’s Whoop Whoop Friday.
Here we are! I love this quilt! It really says spring to me.
It started with a panel from FabricUtopia on Etsy. At 25 by 44″, it seemed too large for a wall hanging, so I made it into a throw quilt. I don’t know the name of the flower block. I didn’t use a tutorial, just inprovised it from some photos on line.
The back is a different green, but I couldn’t resist the birds and roses print.
It’s quilted front and back with white Bottom Line from Superior. The flowers and butterfly are quilted with Rainbows.
This will be SOLD in my Etsy shop!
My quilt full of String Ornaments is finished, and I love it! It feels clean and modern, but still very Christmasy and cozy.
The top was inspired by this ornament fabric I’ve had for awhile and wanted to use for the backing. I love the contrast between the Victorian ornaments and the modern ones.
The red and green fabrics are all from my Christmas scraps, I didn’t cut into any yardage for them. It was fun to remember all the projects and it really did clean up my scrap bin. I pieced them on seed catalog and phone book pages, which came away very easily. Usually I remove the paper as soon as I’m finished piecing, but this time I left it on until I had added the white corners. That made the blocks stable enough to sew together without the paper.
The various white-on-white background fabrics were all from that 12 lb. box from the Fat Quarter Shop last month.
I used the backing fabric to make the binding.
And, yes, it’s been inspected.
We’re linking up to Whoop Whoop Friday at Confessions of a Fabric Addict, and Finished or Not Finished Friday at Alycia Quilts.
This is the Supernova pattern again. When I made this quilt, using the tutorial from Confessions of a Fabric Addict, Jaye said she thought I should make some variations. Here’s one; you never know if I might try more.
This floral fabric is too pretty to be called a stash dog, but it had been hanging around my stash for way too long. Like, I have no idea how long. Many years. I bought this pretty ombre recently to use with it, so until I bound it, this was a two fabric quilt.
Here’s the first layout.
And the second.
And I finally went to the top-to-bottom color wash layout.
I quilted in the ditches from the center out with pink Bottom Line, and used a serpentine stitch in between in pink Sulky. I used all light pink Bottom Line on the back and I can’t believe how well it blended with all the colors. I guess it’s a thing that light pink does that, but I didn’t know.
I’m very happy with the way this turned out, and with my binding fabric.
Yuri’s happy, too. We hope you have some good finishes this week.
We’re linking up with Whoop Whoop Friday at Confessions of a Fabric Addict.
New fabric and a finish this week!
Among the new fabric are these pretty ombres. You’ll have to stay tuned to see what I do with them.
My finish is this log cabin quilt that I made from all those blocks I’ve been piecing from strings for months. These are twelve-inch blocks, and the quilt measures 72″ x 96″.  It’s for donation.
I settled on the straight furrows set for these blocks. I first tried to set them as a barn raising (concentric diamonds), but I had played fast and loose with the values in the blocks, so it was hard to see the pattern. This worked better.
I really like this background fabric.
The quilting is done with Superior’s Bottom Line in white on the back, and aqua Nature’s Colors and white Sulky on the front.
This week: + 10 yards, – 13.5 yards
This year: + 39.5 yards, – 47.25 yards
Net destashed added in 2019: 7.75 yards
Here is the latest of my quilts from the pile of panels I purchased this summer. I was aware that I had almost no blue Christmas scraps to use with it, so I purchased some tree yardage for the side borders, and a charm pack of blue and silver batiks, which became the stars. It finished about 50″ by 65″.
Unlike a pieced quilt, this had a large center with no seams to hide any “foundation” quilting to keep things square. Instead, I machine basted a roughly 12″ grid of Dissolve Extra thread on top.
The stars are quilted with gray Bottom Line, the buildings and sleigh with black BL, and the sky and border with navy and white Fantastico.
I really like the way the quilting in the sky looks. I made sort of flame shapes from the center out. Close to the center, the thread hardly shows, but the white parts begin to show up in the dark edges of the sky.
I backed this with a blue batik with silver metallic snowflakes.
And, yes, it’s been tested for snuggliness.
Good luck on your finishes!
I’m happy to show you this finished quilt! Layer Cake Explosion was the Twilter! quilt-along. The design is by Angela Gross, and you can find it on Craftsy.
Because I used wider sashing, my quilt measured a whopping 93″ square, which was tough to cram under the machine. In a moment of particular lunacy, I thought how nice it would look with a double batting…but I quickly regained my sense, and went with just one layer (Pellon’s Nature’s Touch 80/20). This is a new batting to me, and it was fine, but didn’t seem a lot different from the Warm cotton I usually use. I did like the careful way it was folded in the package, which made it very easy to trim and position the large batting. Yes, it would have looked wonderful with double or extra puffy batting, but it’s just fine this way. Yuri checked.
For once I feel like I did a good job designing the quilting. I was influenced by Wild Quilting by Christina Cameli, which I watched on the free Craftsy day. No, I didn’t do improv quilting like she did, but I got her message of echoing things to give them depth. So where I would usually have made one Orange Peel motif in a block, I echoed each twice. I also added a line to each of the border circles. All the quilting on the top is Superior Rainbows 9808, Opal) and the bottom is pink Bottom Line.
By including the sashing with each block, I was trying to quilt 11″ circles, just impossible to control on this bulky quilt. I knew that, but I wanted to try and I’m glad I did. Some of it is imperfect, especially near the center, but I still like the interlocking circles.
The quilting improved greatly when I finally put on my quilting gloves. I hate them, they’re hot and itchy, but they really worked in this situation.
Allison at Cluck Cluck Sew posted just last week about quilting large quilts. I agree with almost everything she says (especially about quilting-by-checkbook!), except for spray basting. It really doesn’t take much to hold the quilt. You know that I usually use just a little, just barely wafting the spray over the layers. This time I was concerned about holding this large thing together, so I gave it an extra waft. (Still using that can I started in January.) I used my Ping Pong table, basting the center first, then moving it to baste each side. I couldn’t be more pleased with the way it held. I had no shifting and not a pleat or wrinkle on the back! I used twelve bobbins of thread to quilt this.
Speaking of the back, somehow this star landed perfectly in the center. Notice the quilting from the block on the other side. Could never do that again!
It’s important to have a quilt photography assistant who can climb trees.
Thank you, Daisy for leading this project, and Angela for sharing your pattern.
I’ll be linking up to Finish it up Friday at Crazy Mom Quilts, and Whoop Whoop Friday at Confessions of a Fabric Addict.
This is the last one of these, I promise. I’m all out of the fabric, even the scraps (I have a few flannel giraffe squares, but that’s different.) And this quilt may be my favorite.
This was not on my list to make right now, but when I saw Christa’s post about her scrappy half-square triangles, I knew that was the right technique to use with the scraps I had. I combined them with a soft green print and a gray and white stripe, and I like how much softer the look is.
I quilted it all with the walking foot. First I stitched in all the ditches using silver Bottom Line. Then I auditioned three green variegated threads for the the decorative quilting. I chose the So Fine (Superior) on the right, just because it was the lightest. I always prefer bold, contrasting colors (hence all the dark threads in my collection), but I wanted to keep this soft and blending. Light thread looks okay over darker fabric, but dark thread on light shows every wobble.
I like minimal, asymmetrical lines of quilting, so I kept thinking I was finished. I did want to do enough to hold down all of the fabrics, including the small pieced triangles. When I put the last rows of stitching in, it all came together and I knew I had it.
This one’s for sale in my Etsy shop.
Looking forward to seeing your finishes.
My finish this week was this baby quilt for donation. Â (If you need a Zebra quilt, you can find a very similar one in my Etsy shop.) Â This was all fabric from the stash, mostly leftovers from the first Zebra quilt.
There are surprise flannel text patches mixed in on the front, but the backing is quilting cotton.
I had a pleasant time quilting ribbon candy and matchsticks across this using a pastel variegated Rainbows thread from Superior.
However, I added three yards of light gray fabric this week, so it was pretty much a wash.
This week:  + 3 yards, – 3.5  yards
This year:  + 57.25 yards, – 79.25 yards
Net destashed added in 2017:  22 yards
Hope you have time to sew, and that you’re using your stash.
This quilt is headed to Project Linus. Â Linking up to Sew Some Love at Kat and Cat Quilts.
I just really wanted to post this quilt, since it has been almost a month since I’ve talked to you, and since it feels like I’ve worked on this quilt forever. I finished one secret gift, but mostly summer activities got in the way. All finished now!
This is Charlotte Hawk’s 2017 mystery quilt, “Surrounded by Scraps“.
The back looks gray from a distance, but it’s really a tiny green and pink and purple patterned batik.
I quilted a grid of straight lines in the areas between the blocks, using silver Bottom Line thread. Then I used a variegated green So Fine to quilt feathers in the center of the blocks and on the border.
This one is staying right here on our bed!
I’m linking up to Finish it up Friday and Whoop Whoop Friday
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Evening in the Garden Quilts 