...Scrappy Stars - a finished quilt

A very long time ago Rachel hosted a beginning of the year quilt along focusing on quilt made from scraps. 

I started, and finished this quilt top.
Not long after I basted and started hand quilting.

Then for some reason it sat, for ages.

Late last year I finally finished it off! It gone straight into couch rotation.

Now, finally, with the prompt of a Scraptastic link up I've blogged it. 

I find it best not to rush things. 

...a finished top - entierly by hand!

I almost can't believe that I had the patience and persistance to finish this quilt top - and that I still am enjoying it so much that I am already planning the quilting to be done soon - and by hand as well.

There are 32 'star' units in the quilt as well as 6 half 'stars' at the edges, 62 hexagons, 16 half hexagons and 10 half diamonds to form the edges. Each one was basted by hand and hand sewn into the top and then all 304 paper shapes removed. Well almost all, I have left the edge ones in for now and remove them at basting time.

All that adds up to 1592.5" of whip stitched seam. I was glad of a thimble.

The top measures 45" x 56" so it it pretty firmly a baby-lap sized quilt - and leaves me with nothing but admiration for people that can made a full sized quilt in this way - and using much smaller shapes!

I've started on the backing - ready for basting soon. There are 'spare' hexies (basted when I was going to make a multicoloured bacground) joined and then hand appliqued to the backing to hide the seam joining the two backing pieces together. There is a random spare star to be appliqued on the back as well - but I need to wait for after basting for placement. Confused - I'll explain in pictures later!

 

The next job will be to prepare the batting - as this quilt is part of the Scrap Attack Quilt Along I thought I would continue with the scrap theme. I have an (overflowing) box of reasonably decent sized batting scraps and will piece two of these together to get the batting for this quilt!

...finally finished... something

This is not my longest standing work in project - I haven't even really been working on it officially of much more than a week but I have been planning it for almost exactly a year. And it feels like absolutely ages since I have actually finished anything so this is incredibly satisfying.

That isn't even all of them!

This cushion cover is made from 14x14 1.5" finished half square triangles that were the trimmings from the star corners that I had made saved from when I made this quilt over the same long weekend last year. That is 196 HST units and 392 tiny squares of fabric. Why did I think that this would be a quick project when that is more seams than some bed sized quilts have?!?

I trimmed them all to 2" - which in most cases was very little fabric indeed but I ended with with quite a pile of sneeze inducing scraps!

I quilted some zig zags into the white areas - the cushion front is simply the panel on a batting scrap - there is no backing.

I made the cushion back using about 1/2 yard of the central park trees I had and  used this tutorial for a concealed zip back - a slight error means the zipper flap faces the right way or the trees do. I chose the trees.

I love the look of cushions with a piped edge but don't think I do it well enough so this time I tried binding the pillow as I would a quilt and I quite like how it has turned out - with the frame. I might be a convert to this method.

The binding is the leftover quilt binding, the backing some fabric bought for the quilt and never used and the story of the blocks is already told! So in the end I have a 21" square cushion completely from scraps!

...notes and pictures from the weekend

A busy weekend full of baking, sewing, cooking and all the normal weekend chores. 

After my post on Friday looking for some new bread recipes I got one from Becky. I tried it out and the finished texture is great. The quantities didn't quite yield the dough weight I need for it to prove to the lid in the pan but I think a 1.5 mix might work. For now I took the lid off and made a domed loaf that we are already a lot of the way though. 

I also started a scrap project that I kept the bit for for the last 51 weeks - these are the off cuts from the star points from this quilt. I had already sewn them into half square triangle units, the job now is just to trim them all to 2" and sew them together. 

It will end up 14x14 units - 1.5" finished units for a 21" cushion. 

'

I also finally got pictures of my finished Giant 'Valentines' Swoon. The top is 80" square, I'm just considering quilting now. 

An afternoon movie yielded the latest Dessert of the Month stitchery. 

My tip for keeping track of where you are up to - use a highlighter to mark the stitches executed

A few more seams on the scrappy stars too - I hope to have this one finished by the end of the month.

...more scrappy stars

In fact I have finished basting all of the shapes and sewing all of the whole star units together. I do still have to go and re-raid the scrap boxes for the half stars but it has been just too hot and stuffy to do anything like that this weekend.

I have worked out the placement of them all - there is one leftover that will make its way onto the backing in some way when I get to that.

For now all these ones are sewn down - more than half. I'm surprising myself at still enjoying the process of this one. I thought the slow and steady nature of it would have done my head in by now.

Just love it - I'm glad I went with hexagon spacers rather than the diamonds - I love the way it makes each of the stars stand out.