Bright Stars on Black Quilt Finished!

I mentioned I'd been working on the quilting of the Bright Stars on Black quilt but had to put it away while entertaining company. When I was ready for my living room to be taken over by my sewing machine and paraphernalia again, I brought it out and continued the job.

The first thing I did was figure out where my bright strips were going to go for the binding flange and then pieced the pieces together. I didn't have enough length or variety to match the colours of the inside stars, but I followed the general flow from one colour to the next as best I could.

I hand stitched the flange on all four sides to baste it in place and sewed the binding to the back instead of the front. That was so I could fold it over to the front,

 and use some more "big stitch" sewing to finish the binding.

I used two strands of floss (as I did in the center) and changed the colour to match the thread colour used for the stars in the border.

You can see the floss on the binding stitching
change from orange on the left to green on the right.

Although I did mitre the corners of the binding like usual, I simply overlapped the ends of the flange:

I like the colour it gives on the perimeter of the quilt, but the flange is rather sloppy, as you can see here,

 and here:

I think I could have pulled the flange tighter when I applied it (and that's what I'll try next time). Since this is put together already, I am considering sewing the flange down. It would be about the same amount of sewing as sewing a binding down. Or I could let go of perfection expectations and just enjoy a little "texture" on the quilt!

Before I sewed the binding on, I tucked in a hanging sleeve. The top is sewn in with the binding and the bottom is sewn by hand to the back of the quilt.

The sleeve doesn't run all the way to the edge of the
quilt. You leave a little room for the hanging hardware.

The sleeve was sewn from strips of the backing that were cut off the sides of the quilt. I had never thought of that before, but I'll keep it in mind. You often cut off about 4" when you trim a quilt and a hanging sleeve is usually made from an 8" strip. So sewing two of them together would usually work. (In case you're wondering why the hanging sleeve looks so loose, it's done on purpose to leave room for the hanging bar.)

Here is the quilt on a bed:

 The center part covers the width of the bed, and the border hangs over the edge nicely.

I didn't specifically plan for that it's not too surprising. By that I mean, if the centre had worked out to be much larger, I wouldn't have added a border. If it was much smaller, I would have added two borders. Although I didn't make it "for" my bed, I did want it to be a bigger quilt (without becoming a king size!)

I've shown the quilting I did in the center, but I don't think I've shown the borders. I did some dot-to-dot quilting between the border stars. (The straight lines below.)

I was going to echo the angle in the outer part of the border to get triangle shapes or maybe a zig zag, but when I drew it out (in chalk directly on the quilt) it just didn't work because I didn't put an equal amount of space between the stars. Then I thought of just going straight down the border adding simplified "line stars" wherever it seemed best. I liked it.

So I decided to add the same kind of stars between the centre stars. The first one I did had three "scattered" stars, not lining them up.

Then I realized it would be easier to just imitate the border stars and do the three of them on a continuous line:

That save me a few starts and stops.

At the sides where there was a little more space to fill up, I made a "T" at one end and added some stars there too.

In the areas where there was even more space, I again filled it in with scattered stars before realizing that three lines of stars would fill the space just as well. (Again, with many fewer starts and stops!)

Here is the entire quilt:

And the back:

The coloured floss is more visible to the eye than on camera, but I think you can get the idea.

Project Summary
This was a fun quilt to make. I started it in 2017 after two things happened. I saw the Pecking Order quilt tutorial from Missouri Star Quilt Company and my first thought was that it would look great with bright fabric on a black background. Then soon after, I got a lot of black fabric! (A lot!) The fabric didn't have the best feel to it, but it was sold as quilt backing so I decided it was good enough quality to use. It was all in small chunks (about 11x17) with a few very long strips (which were great for the borders and binding!)

Since all the center blocks units are the same (the stars are created with the arrangements of the units), I pulled out some scraps and made units to my hearts content. I thought I had kept track, but when I finally got to putting the top together, I had enough for two tops!! This gave me plenty to chose from to make stars from units with similar colours. And once I had the stars together, I laid them out to figure out the arrangement. I really like the ombre rainbow effect, but I didn't go into the project planning it.

I like to use leftovers from the front on the back, so that is where the flying geese (the triangles) come from. The rest of the back is pieced from the never ending black fabric. Like I said, it doesn't have the best feel, but I just couldn't justify using other fabric when I had all this black fabric to use up. I pieced two 7x14 pieces together to end up with a 14x14 square. (All finished measurements, in case you're wondering how that worked.) Then I sewed the squares together, alternating the seam from horizontal to vertical so that two seams never met.

I didn't keep careful track, but I am quite sure that I did not buy any new fabric for this quilt. It helps when you get a boatload of black to work with and the rest of the pieces can use small scraps. But I did approach the quilt with an attitude of using what I had and seeing what I could make of it.

Size: 91" square
Started: September 2017
Finished: August 2019
Batting: wool
Pattern: centre based on the Pecking Order quilt by Missouri Star Quilt Company. I designed the rest, including borders.

Obsessions

If I knew how to add audio to my posts, you would have that Animotion song in your head for the rest of the day. Oops I looked up a link and now it is in my head. Click this link if you're curious, but at your own peril.

I currently have two crafty obsessions. I recently wrote about one--the bright stars on black quilt. I have finished quilting all 18 of the centre stars. While working on them, it became obvious that I would have to stitch around the border stars as well.

Outlining the outside seemed obvious, but I wasn't sure what to do in the centre square. I drew an eight-pointed star in the same shape as the centre stars, but it was too complicated. Then I tried a square

and an eight-pointed star which matches the border stars instead of the centre ones.

I went ahead and stitched them. I was impatient to stitch and wanted to see what it would really look like--not just a drawing. I put both examples on Insta for an informal poll and the general consensus agreed with my eventual conclusion--the simple square was best.

But no, I didn't bother to take out the stitched star. I left it. Since then I have stitched the stars along two and half sides and have added a few different centres here and there. Mostly different star shapes.

It's been fun choosing floss to match the stars. I've taken to choosing for a whole side at once while the floss is out. Then I can put it all away for a while.

This project has taken over my couch, coffee table and two side tables (one holds supplies and the other supports the quilt in front of me). These little stars are so addictive. They don't take long and I am compelled to start the next one once one is finished.

Before this quilt, I was obsessed with a knitting project. I had it with me yesterday for a car ride and it's just as compelling despite my quilting break. I'm working on the Boxy Tee from this year's Spring/Summer Vogue Knitting. You can see a picture here with my first two swatches:

It's made with two strands held together. You start with two of the same colour and then switch out one strand for another colour. Then after a few rows, you work with two strands of the second colour. Et cetera. This gives a quick and dirty blend from one colour to the next. If you chose two similar colours (like the pink and peach in the magazine picture above) the blend is more subtle.

Most of why I love this design is the colours they used but I wasn't going to buy the yarn for this project. I have lots of lace weight yarn ravelled from sweaters and left over from other projects and wanted to see what I could do with my existing stash. Above you can see my first two swatches. The yarns were too thick in the top one so I rejected those. A few in the second one were acceptable but some didn't work because of their fibre content.

I narrowed to the yarns that would work and did a swatch to find the right needle size.

I was still on the fence about whether the project was worth doing--would I wear it once it was done? I didn't really think so. But I continued because I still wanted to pursue the experiment. I calculated yardage and assigned colours to the pattern's A, B, C, and D designations. This was my first start:

I didn't like it. The colours weren't really blending. It would look better from a distance (how most people would see a shirt I'm wearing, after all) but I didn't like it so I took it out.

New plan. I narrowed the colours further and put them in an order I thought would aid the blending:

and started again.

I didn't like the way the pattern blended the colours, so I tried a different blend pattern from the pink to the blue, and a third blend from light blue to dark blue. I didn't like the blue blend, so I took it out and did it again like the pink/blue blend.

I wanted a variety in the blends so I wrote up ways to do it over 30 rows, 26 rows and 19 rows. I then wrote up a whole new stripe/blend pattern for each piece, how many rows to do of each colour and which blend pattern to use from each colour to the next.

This is the first piece, the right side of the back. I still wasn't sure if this would be a wearable piece, but I knew there was no stopping now.

In the second piece (left back), I switched the starting point in the colour sequence and added a pop of lime:

When they're sewn together, it will look something like this:

When I took these pictures, I was this far on the third piece (right front):

but by this writing, I'm almost done this piece too. For this one, I switched up the colour sequence (a little).

By now I know I'm going to finish the piece and even if I don't like how it looks on me, I'll wear it. The cashmere, wool, and silk of these yarns are making a wonderful light fluffy magical fabric. It will be a dream to wear.

One thing these projects have in common is changing colours over the piece. This is a big reason why it's so compelling. Everyone knows a striped garment is faster to knit than a solid one. You push yourself to finish and/or start the next stripe and before you know it, you've knit a whole lot.

That Time When I was Suddenly Quilting

With the back and front of my "bright stars on black" quilt pieced and having a batting I could use, it was possible to move on to basting it together.

With travel and company coming, I didn't think I'd have time to actually quilt it but I figured I could at least get it basted. (It's not the best practice to have a quilt sit around folded after being basted, but I was willing to take a chance.)

I brought everything I needed to baste it together at church a couple weeks ago. I work there once a week, so I went in early and took advantage of the large tables. Three of them side by side is the same size as the quilt top.

Well, I brought everything except the big clips I use to keep the backing in place. (These are the clips I had to go out and buy last time I basted a quilt there. Maybe I should make a list?) I took a chance, and tried to keep the backing smooth without the clips.

It almost worked. I ended up with a fold in the middle (on the back) and had to undo and redo half of the quilt. I didn't take pictures, but hundreds of pins were used. But - importantly - not all of my pins were used. I didn't have to go out and buy more this time!!

The quilt sat in a basket for a while, but one evening I decided to pull it out. (I think the goal was to empty the supplies out of the basket and use it for laundry again, but one thing leads to another...) The only idea I had for quilting this quilt was black lines between the stars. Wavy, undulating lines or something to suggest motion.

But suddenly I was quilting around the stars -- big stitch quilting with coloured embroidery floss.

After outlining the star, I decided to echo the shape inside the star as well.

I made a paper template at the medium size, pinned it to the quilt and stitched around it (right next to the paper). The star shape is easy to make as it's two squares centered on top of each other, with one rotated 45°. Having four seams in the middle of the block makes it really easy to line up and centre the star.

Stitching around the paper was tedious and inaccurate as it kept shifting, so by the time I made the smaller paper template, I realized I could trace around it with chalk and sew on the line without the paper in the way. That is how I proceeded and it is working well. I mark each star as I start to work on it. If I did them all at once, I think the chalk would wear off of the stars by the time I got to them all.

After stitching the second star, I decided it needed something more in the middle, so I repeated the same star shape in the centre. Each leg of the star is only one stitch so it's a solid line instead of the dashed running stitch of the larger stars.

By the next day I had four stars done. Here is a picture of the back:

I love that the stitching lines are square with the lines of the triangles. It's easy to not line up the back and front perfectly when you're layering everything, but I'm happy it worked out! (I'm sure having a table top where I could see everything at once helped!)

The floss colours match the stars so the back will also have an ombre rainbow effect. Or it would if you could see the colours very well. The lines aren't thick enough to be distinguishable against the black in that much detail.

I am also pleased that I found a way to deal with the knots so that the running stitch is continuous on the back and the front. Ways I have done it before always left a gap or an extra long stitch on the back.

By last night, I had seven stars done: the blue one, the green ones, and three yellow ones.

I was thinking that was out of 16 stars total, but when I spread out the whole quilt I realized there are 18 stars in all. So I'm closer to a third done than half. (But it's still going quicker than I would have thought.)

It's a good thing I tolerate being warm (and generally seek it out) because having a wool quilt on your lap on a hot summer day isn't for everyone!! :)

I still don't know how I'm going to quilt between the stars; might be black lines, might echo the star shapes some more. I have some time to think about it. I also am contemplating the border. I may find myself "suddenly" big stitch quilting around those smaller stars too. A quilt wants what a quilt wants. Who am I to deny it?