Cardinal Quilt Finished

I have really been sewing my little heart out over here. I am so excited about finishing up a bunch of quilts. I have finished 3 in the last 2 weeks. Here today is the Cardinal Quilt for my sister K. She isn't a computer person, so I can show it here with no worries that she will see it before I mail it to her. (heavy picture warning)

 This is where I started. I knew I wanted wonky stars, but I couldn't seem to get it to work for me.

 I tried several random arrangements and then, I gave up and came up with a more even and symmetrical plan. I thought I wouldn't like it as well, but I was wrong.

 This is the unquilted top. The color of the background is so light, it looks tan here on the deck.

 Here it is all quilted up, though and you can see the pretty pale blue.  The fabric I chose for this, was where I started before I had a design plan. My sister loves cardinals and they remind her of our hometown. She has lived on the west coast for so long now, she forgets about them. Last year she made a trip back east and kept talking about how nice it was to see them and how she missed them.

 So when I saw Laurie Wisbrun's Holiday Sweet Tweets fabric, I knew I had to get some and make her a quilt. This quilt decided it needed lots of quilting.  I started outlining the stars, but quickly saw it needed so much more. It was easy enough to follow the piecing lines to come up with the pattern

 I left the star centers unquilted and I love the way they look. All the crinkles in the background are so wonderful and lend a bit of old fashioned sweetness to this quilt.  I have never put this much quilting into such a small quilt.  I would do it again, but hopefully not too soon.

 This quilt has 17 hours of quilting in it, not including the binding. I gave the borders a softer, rounded quilting design. I used a continuous figure 8.

 The back of the quilt is a chunk of swirly blue I have had forever and some Kate Spain Terrain, along with the last of the Sweet Holiday Tweets.

 I really didn't want to buy more fabric, but I really didn't like my binding options in my stash.

 So I took the quilt to my LQS and found this wonderful stripe. I only had to get a half yard and with tax, it was only $6.  Not too bad.

 See how pretty it looks with the edges?  I think that fabric was just waiting for this quilt to bind.

And now, I just need to box it up and ship it.  Soon. Or I won't want to let it go.  I think my sister will like it.  See you soon with another finish.