Let Your Star(s) Shine--Finish(es)

 

Back in July my good friend Sandra at mmm!quilts gifted me a copy of her recently released Let Your Star Shine pattern and I was bit hard by the make-me bug.  In one weekend, I ended up with two versions of the quilt.  I just couldn't stop!

I blame it on the well written, easy to follow pattern and the fabric selection the day I ran to the store.  Whatever the case, if you find yourself in the need of a smaller quick quilt, this is a perfect one.  Want to super size it?  Make four blocks and connect them.  Boom.  Bigger quilt and still super fast.

When it came time for the quilting, I knew I wanted to do something different with each quilt.  What will follow will be a picture overload of why I decided to quilt each one the way I did.  So let's break it down.

This one started with the black print with bright flowers and cute tiny blue birds.  I pulled my coordinating colors from the print.  My thread choice was to use one color on the entire quilt, Aurifil 50wt #2600 Dove.  Shades of gray are probably my favorite neutral.  This particular lighter shade, seemed to play nicely with each print without over powering anything...even on the busy black print.  I used one ruler, Piece and Quilt's Inside Out 4-in-1 Mini .  It's perfect for stitching in the ditch, straight lines and the curves in the center four patch block.

The rest was just free motion quilting fun, from the switch backs in the first pink/turquoise border to the pebble swirl filler.

I decided to do grid work in the first border.  For visual interest, I alternated the switch backs in the pink and turquoise fabrics.  You really notice it in the "mitered" corners.

I didn't go too crazy with the quilting in the black print.  It's so busy I knew you wouldn't necessarily see it unless you were pretty close to the quilt.  Some simple straight lines and a few curves to create a tiny bloom. 

The part that really stumped me was what to do with the second turquoise/pink border.  I'll be honest, nothing really spoke to me.  In the end, the decision was made to threat the outer border and white print as one background section...and I love it.  Straight lines helped to give the star the look of being bigger than it actually is and the pebble and swirl filler kind of mimics the small prints in the black fabric, pulling everything together.

And let's not forget the binding.  I'm a big fan of using a print that isn't in the actual piecing of the quilt...and that is the direction I chose to go for this one.  This tiny polka dot print added just another layer of fun to this already popping quilt.

Now let's take a look at the second quilt.  I hope you don't get motion sickness, because it's about to get curvy.

While the fabric for the first quilt was being cut, I noticed the purple/blue/pink print on the shelf and thought WAIT A MINUTE...I NEED THIS!  And so a second quilt would be born.  I love the curves and arcs in the print and decided this version would be all about the curves.  The more the merrier.  To achieve the look I wanted, I again used the Inside Out 4-in-1 Mini ruler accompanied by AngelaWalter's Squiggy ruler and Amanda Murphy's Good Measures Every Circle rulers.  Instead of using one thread color for all the quilting, I opted to match the threads to the fabrics.  So out came the trusty Aurifil 50wts #2588 Light Magenta, #2784 Dark Navy, #2510 Light Lilac and #2600 Dove.  Each color melted perfectly into the fabrics providing the perfect textures.

All of the quilting is about different versions of continuous curves. For the white(ish) background print, I marked out a 1" grid and let the free handed orange peels fly.

I marked the first pink/navy border into squares with diagonal lines and quilted orange peels around the lines.  For the outer pink/navy border I marked out on point squares with loops filling in the background.

The fabric in the larger star points is quite busy so again I needed to choose something simple as not to compete.  More large loops come together to form a sort of flower shape in each point.

For the binding, I chose to frame it in the large star point print.

A shot of the back of a quilt really shows off all the quilting.

So that completes the look inside my quilty head and my thoughts behind what I did.  I went into both projects not really having a quilting plan.  I started with the center stars and just kind of built from there, letting the pattern and fabrics guide me.  I'm really trying to turn my focus to finishes.  Obsessing and over thinking on the quilting only slows you down.  If I'm going to custom quilt something, I find if I can find one element to tackle first the rest will fall into place.  Just trust that.