Wednesday WIP-Done!

I have finally finished the quilt top with the No Point Stars pattern by Allison of Cluck Cluck Sew. What a great pattern and my quilt top would have be done so much faster, except I decided to sew together all the HSTs an use them for sashing. Well, turns out that didn't work out. There weren't enough of them. And I didn't have enough extra fabric to just make more. So I went to plan B. But I had to come up with Plan B first.

 The first Plan B that I really liked was to change and use this bright green for the sashing. But, my sister didn't think it worked and when I showed my daughter, she said "what else do you have?"

 So I pulled out these two purples. One is marbled and red violet and the other a dark purple that leans more towards blue. She didn't like either of those. "Got any grey?" Yes, it turned out that I did have about half a yard of grey. It was just barely enough, and I got to use my bright green as the corners.

 And here it is. I am having trouble getting true colors indoors. It has been rainy and windy here, so maybe tomorrow. But it is done.

 I used the HST strips for the outer border. I love the way it turned out and yes, I know the contrast is not the best on some of the pieces, but it's for a two-year-old so I think it's fine. And I like it too.

 Now I just have to piece together a back for it so I can pin baste it. I already know how I want to quilt it. But for now, this project goes back burner for a few days. My sewing space doubles as a guest bedroom and we have a guest coming, so I will need to pack everything up until next week.

 But that's okay, because I am hand quilting my Penny Sampler Quilt with Pearl Cotton and I still have quite a ways to go on that. I will show you some pictures of the progress next time. Until then, Happy Wednesday.

She Said No More Quilts

My oldest daughter told me awhile back that she needed no more quilts. Now, that's just crazy talk, I thought. But for awhile, I made her and her family no quilts. I sewed clothing instead and I did enjoy that a lot. But then, one day I saw this on line and I was a goner.

This is Front Yard by Sandra Clemons for Michael Miller. Now there was a bundle on sale and so I bought it, along with a bit of extra yardage of two prints, knowing that this was destined to be a quilt for Miss N. She is the youngest grand baby and only has a few baby quilts to her name as well as one bed size quilt. And she is a purple girl too.

I wasn't sure what to make exactly, but I knew I would fussy cut these birds for the center of the blocks. Then, Allison of Cluck Cluck Sew shared a pattern for no pointed stars and I knew that was the one. This is such an easy quilt block to make. I decided to make 30 blocks originally, but then found I didn't have quite enough fabric for 30, so 5 x 5 blocks it was for a total of 25.

This is a shot of most of the blocks. My design wall isn't quite wide enough to fit them all. I just put them up there as I went, and this is not the final arrangement, but you get the idea. I knew I wanted to add sashing of some sort, but what?

 In an effort not to waste the scraps, which I often just toss in the trash, I sewed all of the cut HSTs that were trimmed away. This went pretty quickly, despite the fact that there were, 200 pairs of them. Chain piecing is your friend here.

 Then I pressed all the seams open, to reduce the bulk in them since they were so small.

And of course I had to clip off all the little flags that were hanging off at the opposite corners. So happy this part is behind me now.

 Now I have begun sewing them together in strips like the orange one above. My plan is to use them as sashing between the blocks. Before I do that, I need to get all the blocks squared up at 12.5 inches and get all my sashing strips sewn together.

This is approximately how it will look. I have a dark grey that I will use for the corner pieces in between the sashing strips. I don't think I have enough to go around the outside edge of the blocks, so that will be another adventure to figure out, once I get to that point. The goal is to get this done ad quilted by spring break when I go to visit so I can take it with me and give it to her.

Have a great weekend and I will see you back here soon. Linking up with Amanda Jean at Crazy Mom Quilts. Finishing 25 blocks and 200 HSTs qualifies as a finish in my book.