WIP Wednesday - Still Starry Eyed

I pieced my Star Crossing block from last week - couldn't help it, I had to get it together and I'm very pleased with the result.  The block is 32" and I'm going to add borders to bring up to 36" square for a baby quilt.  It was really easy to put together.

I've been thnking about how to quilt it and have come up with straight lines along the sun rays and stipple in the white areas.  Not sure what to do with the navy square and star centre.  Maybe I'll stitch in the ditch and echo in matching thread?

I'm thrilled with how this block turned out and I love the pattern multiplied so I've drafted a 24" block as well.  I hope to put this one together as a tutorial and pattern but I've got some more Star blocks to finish.

Last week I had a star centre for Happy Quilting's Star Surround QAL.

This week I have surrounds and corners.
 

Next week is assembly but I couldn't resist laying them out for a sneaky peek!

I'm loving this project.  It'll be a 40" baby quilt, hopefully in 2 weeks time.

No joy on my Swoon QAL this week - still in pieces.  Hopefully Sunday will be a swoon day for me and I'll get this one done as well!

These large star blocks are tons of fun and very versatile.  I'll be making them for a while, 5 more Swoon to go in addition to this one!

Linking up to

WIP - All in Pieces

I think I've gone Star mad.  I'm still making Swoon blocks

and taking part in Melissa's Star Surround Quilt-A-Long.

Both of these designs have a large block feel to it with a star at the centre.  Having this in mind and the need to come up with a Bee Block (I'm not Queen Bee until next June but there's no harm in starting early!) I came up with this over the weekend.

I've had a look and can't find it as a traditional block.  If anyone knows this please let me know but for the moment I'm calling it Star Crossing.  It's too big to use for my Bee Block (max size 14") but perfect for a baby quilt or a throw.

Of course I had to test it straight away.  So instead of sewing together Swoon and Star Surround I pieced the HST and Flying Geese for this and laid it our on my design wall (aka the floor).  Charly helped enormously by keeping a watch at the window for Wilbur the Wrecker (aka the Happy Basset Hound).

I think the navy Kona solid is too dark for the pastels I've used.  Maybe a brighter blue would have been better.  Question : should I change it now or try to lift it with a bright thread on quilting?

This was a very quick put together for a baby quilt and I think I'll write it up as a pattern.  It goes together very much like Swoon and the colour variations and size options are endless! With pinwheel or without pinwheel it works quite well.

Funny how you get an idea in your head and the things that influence it.  So now I have 3 stars projects in pieces that I will work on putting together this week! 

Linking up to Slow Boggers Linky Party,  Design wall monday and

Solar Stars Mini Quilt

So it started with the idea of stars while taking the Craftsy course "Designing Modern Quilts" with Weeks Ringle.  One of the ideas was Beyond The Block, looking at a design concept as a whole.  I came up with this idea really from playing with curves and gradient colours on Photoshop Elements while thinking of giant red stars but I had no idea how to make it.

 So I decided to procrastinate as you do and go shopping.  I bought a fat eight bundle of Kona solids in sunny colours and Kona Midnight from Fluffy Sheep Quilting and I just love these colours together.  Totally gorgeous.  One of Week's lessons was to make a mini-quilt and test the idea out so a fat eight was perfect.

Even in mini size I didn't know how to go about getting the exact curve of the large sun and I pondered this for a while.  Eventually I figured out I needed a pattern so I printed my original design in black and white and enlarged it by just over 200%.

I was fairly sure I wanted inset circles but some of the circles would be small in mini so I decided to try inset and needle turn applique and test out which suited the design best.  So I inset the large star and appliqued the smaller two.

I love the inset - it is so clean and crisp and perfect.  And I found them easier than the needle turn applique which I definitely need to practice.

I had the idea of small stars in the background so I decided to hand tie my mini-quilt (never tied a quilt before-really great fun!). I put in the constellation the Plough in the blue pearl cotton and a few white stars surrounding but it was too much so I took a few out.  All ready to be washed and take out my markings and hopefully get a nice finish.

When I eventually get around to making this in large size I think I'd hand embroider stars in the background fabric and do concentric rings in the stars.  Still I'm very pleased with my first attempt at design and I learned a lot from making this mini.  Espeially how important it is to match the binding to the star colours which was a little tricky but well worth it.

Linking up to Ellison Lane Quilt's Modern Mini Challenge