Dancing Stars

This project was one of three I worked on throughout 2023 for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge that Angela of soscrappy hosts each year. It is one of two RSC projects I did last year from the August/September 2022 issue of Quick & Easy Quilts. The designer did black stars on a grey background whereas I chose to do mine in rainbow colours on grey.

Like the original, I did colourful background squares. I’m pleased with how it turned out. It did, however, have its growing pains. 

You may recall when I first set the 20 blocks on my design wall, I did it as the original, without sashing. It was scrap barf I'm sorry to say...just too busy. I hit upon the 1" finished sashing to give a bit of separation between blocks. 

Once I added the burnt orange batik cornerstones, it was perfect.

Each block has 28 squares and 16 HSTs, so with 20 blocks, that means there are 880 pieces, not counting the sashing and cornerstones, in the quilt! And I'm sorry to report that, no, it didn't use up all my random scraps.

I quilted it up in a snap with an allover large meander using a black and grey variegated thread from Connecting Threads. It worked very well over the riot of colours.

I went to my binding scraps bag to see if I had any pieces that might suit the quilt. I did have a few greens and a black, so I used them all but they only went a little past one side of the quilt. Since I had my green strips box out from making a green Strippy Stars quilt block, I had the brainwave to look in it in case there were any that measured 2.25" wide. Oh yes there were! Several forest greens, a Slytherin chunk, and a brown, green and red floral got joined together in no time and stitched onto the quilt.

It looks great. I remembered to sew in a satin label, and stitched my initials in the lower right corner.

It amazes me how cohesive the result is!

Here is the back, another pieced back of various hunks of fabric. One is from my aunt; another is a pretty floral (irises) from Hoffman Fabrics that I bought several years ago but have never used outside of an appliquéd heart in a heart quilt. The chairs fabric is a half metre I bought at my then guild's yard sale. I thought it was such an interesting fabric but I've never used it, and I've been waiting for an appropriate back to use it on. Feels so good to use up those three chunks. A couple of strips from other projects extended the backing. 

My irises at their finest

So the thought for this quilt as I was quilting it was that it would be the one I'd donate to the Windsor Sexual Assault Centre where I always give a Hands2Help quilt. It wants to be for a kid. Then I thought of giving it to Ronald McDonald House, and then it came to me that it needs to go to a little 6-year-old boy named Xander. When Brady was first hospitalized, he shared a room with this sweet boy who Brianne wanted to kidnap, he was just so adorable. He had no less than four organ transplants. You read that right. He's been in the hospital for nine months, and is scheduled to go home in June. I think this quilt would make a great I Spy quilt, as you can see by the photo below. Minions, teapots, stars, ladybugs, camping, pumpkins, and more. Now to figure out how to get it to him!

Quilt Stats:

Pattern: by Jean Kritenbrink in Fons & Porter Quick & Easy Quilts

Size: 51”x 64"
Fabric: scraps and stash

Batting: Hobbs 80/20 fusible (I did not fuse it though)

Backing: stash and scraps

Quilted: on Avril 43 572 stitches

Threads: pieced on my Bernina and Featherweight; quilted with Essential variegated cotton; Bottom Line in the bobbin

A new issue of Make Modern, my favourite magazine, has just dropped, and as per usual, there is a collection of ten vibrant and varied quilts, from bright hot colours to softer muted ones, from angular quilts to curved ones. Articles and a new binding method add to the interesting topics. A terrific value imho. Note that MM is a sponsor of my QAL, as they have been for all eight years!😊

Linking up

soscrappy

My Quilt Infatuation

Alycia Quilts

From Bolt to Beauty

Songbird Designs