While the Tessellated Leaves Blog Hop was going on last week, I took the opportunity to get ahead on several projects which I am excited to show off this week! How about we jump right in with a finished quilt? It turns out that the Seeing Stars quilt that I started on January 22nd to fill in some time for me was the perfectly sized project! I finished the quilt on January 27th, and I am thrilled with how it came together.
Let’s talk some quilt statistics!
- Total Quilt Time: 9.5 hours
- Fabric Prep / Design: 1 hour
- Piecing: 6.25 hours (roughly 20 minutes for each block plus a bit of time to assemble)
- Quilting: 1.5 hours
- Binding: 0.75 hours
When I was piecing the quilt, I knew that I was going to want to put a thin border around the outside to help me preserve the nice points of the star. I like to use 2.5-inch wide binding when applying the binding with my machine, and that results in around a 3/8-inch border, which would have gobbled up the points. I considered using a darker fabric for the border, but when I auditioned a few materials, I chose to use the same white-on-white print as the stars for the border, knowing that the dark border would really help pull it all together and pop.
Seeing Stars Completed Quilt
I quilted an all over design (my new favorite meandering spiral loops) using 50 wt Aurifil 2024 (white). The thread blends in perfectly against the stars, and looks great on the darker colors of the quilt, top and bottom.
Seeing Stars – Quilting Detail
Seeing Stars – Quilting Detail (Back)
More quilt statistics (shrinkage)!
- Flimsy Finish: 42.5 inches square
- After Quilting / Squaring / Binding: 41.5 inches square (2% shrinkage)
- After First Wash: 39 inches square (8% shrinkage)
I enjoyed this quick make and my 5th quilt finish of 2015. I expect my productivity to drop of sharply in February due to travelling for QuiltCon, but I had a fun streak of finishes in January.
Lovely finish! I find it so interesting to read your stats of how long it takes you to make the individual parts of the quilt … also makes me realise how slow I am LOL 🙂
Your quilt turned out so cute! Love the backing and the loopy quilting. Nice work, Yvonne!
Love your statistics! I think it’s great to show the time commitment quilting requires. Your color pick is perfect, and the quilting is a fun, light hearted finish. Nice job!
You are a quilting machine! Have I written that to you before? Cuz I think it every time I read your posts. This quilt looks fabulous Your color selection is awesome!
It looks great! I love the small pop of the white border. It is like the mat before the frame. 🙂 And now I really want to try that quilting design.
Love this quilt!! It is my favorite so far of the ones that you’ve made. I’m partial to stars, love the color choices, and the backing is just perfect. Wonderful work, as always, Yvonne. Kathy from Florida.
I think the thin border was a great touch, and I really like the stripe binding. I’m going to have to practice that quilting pattern, it looks very cool.
Excellent choice of the white narrow border to preserve the points – looks great!
Love that backing fabric and your swirly pattern is perfect for it. Really like lemon & grey
This is entirely so adorable and way cute, I LOVE that backing fabric! Can’t remember if this is a find from the MIL but all of her finds have worked out really well for you! Totally jealous. If I ever had the opportunity to finish a quilt from cutting to piecing in even a week… I would feel as if I had become President for the day. Great job! One day I will hopefully be able to stay home and do just the same! I am envious of your time!
It turned out so great! The giraffes are the icing on the cake of this quilt!
This is lovely! I like your colors and that small white border works very well! Nice work.
Love~and backing fabric is adorable
This quilt looks so fun and cheery and I have to say it is one of my favorites. The quilt design is something I’m going to have to try! 🙂 The quilt stats are interesting; I always like that you include them.
We should all start with the backing fabric more often!!
The thin white border and dark binding frames it all nicely.
I think that QuiltCon will be the perfect time for you to ‘stop and smell the quilts’! You’ve been up to some amazing work and we’re only one month into the year. Great finish. Love how the yellow works as an accent, and how well the backing fabric coordinates with the front (although I think you mentioned that that was what you based your color scheme on in an earlier post). It works!
Beautiful! The color scheme is fantastic, and I love the use of the white border to act as the mat for your artwork!
I love your quilting on this one 🙂
I love all of your stats!! It inspires me to try to keep better track of mine. I tend to make tiny bursts of progress at a time and rarely have big blocks of uninterrupted time, but I still want to try 🙂 You truly are a quilting machine! I’m impressed that I’ve finished one quilt already, and here you are crossing number four off your list 🙂 Awesome!
I normally dont like star quilts but I really like this one Yvonne! Maybe the yellow-gray-black is one of my favourite colour combos? The quilting is very beautiful too. As per your productivity dropping in Feb: take a break and enjoy every second at QuiltCon. Then come back with lots of ideas and continue making-full on!
I’m not a fan of yellow but I do like it in combo with grey. Plus I like stars in any form so this turned out really lovely! Well done!
As an idea with the binding so it doesn’t take over too much of the quilt edge, how about when squaring up the quilt, not trimming up against the top’s edge directly but trimming 1/8″ or so away from the top — that way there’s a bit of “fullness” inside the binding as well?
I really like the pops of yellow; the yellow star backgrounds really help the yellow strips in the dark fabrics stand out when they get a bit lost without that extra yellow there.
I can’t believe you’ve made 5 quilts already this year!!! You are a machine!
It turned out beautifully. I love the white border with the darker binding. It really finishes the whole things off nicely.
Congrats on already finishing 5 quilts! Love the backing for this quilt as much as the front. Such a great little quilt.
It looks great, and you were so spot on with that giraffe print, such a perfect backing fabric.
Yvonne, your quilt turned out really nice. Jan from Sew and Sow Farm sent me over from the 2 year Blog Anniversary giveaway! You should check her post out. http://sewandsowfarm.blogspot.com/2015/02/anniversary-giveaway-and-xoxoxox.html?showComment=1423960093381#c8879021082153676166
These pieces are beautiful! I face all my art type pieces. I find as long as you carefully trim the corners and press the facing toward the back, it is an easy way to finish off a piece.