Pleaides for the Blogger's Quilt Festival

 Pleiades, named for the constellation of Seven Sisters.
7 white stars for the ones you can see easily, 7 blue stars for a total of the 14 that can be seen with the naked eye.  11 more stars quilted in for the many more that can only be detected by telescope.

 This quilt measures 33" x 33" and was made for a guild challenge where the only "rule" was to have at least one 5 pointed star on the front.  Unfortunately I wasn't at the meeting where the other quilts were shown :(.  I wish I could have seen them all.

 I quilted around each star and radiated out from each center.  All on my domestic machine.

 I love to use uglies on the back of quilts.  A great way to use up fabric.

This is my entry for the Blogger's Quilt Festival in the Small Quilts Category.  (yay for entering two quilts!)

Submissions are through Oct. 31, and then voting!

Original Pleiades post is *here*.

Baby Quilt Friendship Star

It is the time of year for the Blogger's Quilt Festival.

  This time around you are allowed to enter two! quilts.  So my first entry is going to be my Baby Quilt Turquoise and Yellow Friendship Star.

 This was created for my kid's violin teacher's first baby (who has since arrived in the world!)
She said nursery colors were turquoise and yellow since they were not finding out the gender ahead of time.  I was originally hesitant, but so pleased with how it turned out.

 I quilted it on my home sewing machine.  Stitch in the ditch around the starts, and FMQ everywhere esle.

 A couple shots of the back.

 I used the leftover blocks to make the back a bit more interesting.

 More quilty goodness.

Finished Size: 46" x 46"
Quilted on my home machine with Sulky, Aurifil and Masterpiece threads
Pellon natural cotton batting

You can find my original post on this quilt here.

Blogger's Quilt Festival Entry

I couldn't decide which quilt I've finished recently that I wanted to enter in the Blogger's Quilt Festival.  I thought that the Windows Quilt might be visually stunning, but I've decided on the Ruby Hexagon Quilt, instead.

 As part of the entry, I'm supposed to talk about why I made it, why its special, and what I learned.

 I made this quilt for a friend who was expecting her fourth child:  a girl after having three boys!
 She chose a hexagon and diamond pattern and the Ruby line from Moda.  I made it happen.  I did all the math myself! Oy.  But it worked out!  The hexagons were machine pieced into chains and then I hand pieced the diamonds in.

Why do I love this quilt - it is a demonstration of all my quilting skills - including things that I never thought I'd try before.  I really enjoyed the hand piecing parts of the quilt and am thrilled with how much precision you can get!  This quilt has a lot of inset seams!

The backing is flannel and so soft, perfect for a baby girl!  I free motion quilted flowers and leaves with my domestic machine.  A pattern that I made up myself.  The hexagon on the back is the label - we were still waiting for the arrival when I was taking photos of the quilt.

 What did I learn?  Well, I learned how to hand piece, and I think I was pretty skilled at it by the end of the quilt!  Perhaps it was the hand piecing that reinforced the idea that sometimes you have to slow down and take the time to get things right.

 After all the work I put it in, it was definitely one of the hardest quilts to give away - but it couldn't have gone to a better home!