Pleiades - A Finish

This post has been a long time in coming. You see, I started making these paper pieced stars way back in June.

Then in July I had a finished top, and the top quickly turned into a finished quilt.

I couldn't share it before today because it was for a guild challenge.  The only rule is that the quilt had to have one 5 pointed star on the front.  We were given a paper pieced star pattern as a start if we needed it.  That's what I ended up using for all my stars.

Last night was the voting on the anonymous quilts.  I missed out on the voting because of family obligations.  The winners will be announced at our Holiday Party in November.  Fingers crossed....

Pleiades - named for the constellation of the seven sisters.  This quilt has seven bright white stars, representing those 7 sisters of Greek mythology.  There are seven blue stars to make a total of 14 visible stars, which is what can be seen with the naked eye.  The quilted in stars represent the many, many more stars that make up the constellation that can only be seen with telescopes.

I quilted around each star for definition and then went back to quilt in the rays.  I did the rays with my free motion foot, so they are not perfect, but I'm perfectly ok with that, especially with all the texture the quilt got after I washed it.  Each star is made from a different fabric.  7 blues and 7 white on white fabrics.

The back is made form a bunch of uglies that I mashed together.

Some quilting detail from the back.

My quilting threads.

I love this shot with WP laying next to the quilt.  This is actually before the binding and washing.

My moment of brilliance when I used the practice block for my label!

WIP Wednesday 6.4.14

 I frantically finished piecing these this morning, so I could blog them and so I could move them off the table to start packing.  I use the dining room table to 'stage' all the stuff that needs to be packed so I can see it in one place and figure out how to pack it all.


 Moving on to the WIPs. 

Whew.  7 paper pieced stars.  I'm starting to get the hang of it. 
Now I've got 7 more to do in navy on navy. 

If I'm really lucky I'll have time to prep and cut them tonight, but I should really, really be cleaning and packing.  Oh, and going to baseball tonight. 

And the hexies are packed and ready to go.  Only hand work is being packed along. I can piece in the car, piece on the beach, and piece in the house.  Hopefully lots of progress to show when I get back.

Check out all the other WIPs at Freshly Pieced.

Trying My Hand at Paper Piecing

It has probably been about 10 years since I last tried paper piecing.  I'm not finding it any easier now than it was then.  The whole thing about working backwards-my brain confuses.

And the waste, oh, the waste.  Hurts my Dutch sensibilities.

So this was my first attempt.  It is OK, except for that little piece I had to add in the top corner. 

Star #2.  I am starting to figure it out. 
I also figured a way to go a bit faster and waste a little bit less.  I was cutting out piece by piece, loosely by scissors.  Since I am doing a number of these blocks, I figured out how to do multiple piece cutting.  Now, I'm sure that all you experienced paper piecers figured this out long ago, but I was pretty proud of myself.

All my background pieces are ready to go.  On to the star pieces...

I have to say, I more thoroughly appreciate you all who do intricate paper piecing!  Any tips would be pretty appreciated.