Star Crazy

Isn't this a gorgeously vibrant collection of flowers? It really pops on the kitchen table, even on the dullest of days. I love the citrus greens with the clean white and hot pink!! Even the tiny little splash of purple.

At the weekend I did a little more work on my star quilt, deciding that I needed to make it slightly bigger with the addition of paper pieced triangles.

There wasn't anything too over-thought with this. The angle of the triangle was a right angle as it covered the gap between the floral Kaffe Fassett fabric, and was set up to the second point in because I'd made an error on one of the points and not pulled the fabric over far enough, leaving a rough edge (there's always one!).

Kit was being very helpful with my decision making. He is a very good cat to bounce ideas around with, agreeing with everything.

I tacked the edges of the triangles down to show the circular shape, and added a cute little button to the middle to hide the stitching there.

In the evening (which is why the photos are really bad- the flash never helps with indoor photography does it?), I cut out a circle of batting, just the right size to fit within the hoop, sandwiched between the quilted star and a layer of blue cotton. I decided to have a crack at adding some extra texture to the back and made a running stitch around those triangles, with the ends of the thread almost to the cut line (the red thread) so that they would be hidden within a binding.

Handily, at work, I found a brilliant bias binding that perfectly matched the pinks and blues within the fabrics I had used. I cheated with the binding, buying ready made stuff as I had been using up scraps and didn't really have enough fabric left to make my own.

I haven't actually properly sewn a binding on a shaped quilt before, although I found that this went on like a dream. It is all hand stitched, with the invisible stitches holding it on the back. It just totally completes this little quilt!

Because I am so chuffed with this little design, I have started another one- Christmas themed this time!!! And I had some ideas for variations with the design. This time, rather than having each spoke with the same fabric order, I have shunted the fabrics down one all the way around, hoping it would create a spiral look.

Ta-daah!!! The spiral hasn't quite worked as I hadn't taken into account the number of spokes in relation to the amount of different fabrics used- that's what happens when you get over excited- but you can see how the spiral would work on most of the star.

Do you see in the below image where the spiral starts again? Ideally I think I would need another three spokes to finish off the second spiral properly, or perhaps more fabric designs to make one big swirl?

The stitching is so methodical, it almost creates a dot to dot on the back! I think that this one will be backed with the green star fabric if I have enough left, and either a proper Christmas binding, or maybe a plain coloured binding. I will let you know when I finish it and how my other experiments go- maybe they will make for interesting Christmas presents!!