Last May I started on the Start Quilt Along. Now, well over a year later it’s on my bed.

I’m really happy with it but it has taken some time. I had it long are quilted and picked it up in January this year. It has taken a while for the quilting to grow on me. At first I doubted the pattern, then the threads, then I contemplated having it over quilted. None of which happened. After finally binding it in August, I love it.

The photo has been along time coming. I meant to tidy the room to get a shot of the bassinet next to it but missed that entirely. However, now I can get a shop of Miss H modelling one of the dresses that started my passion for these colours.


Please note: I do not usually dress my children to match the furniture so please somebody stop me before I turn the ends of the curtain fabric into a pant suit for myself.

The seeing stars top is finished and so is my attempt to thriftily piece together the back. The weather is finally good enough to take the quilt outside and so here they are.

I'm pleased with the quilt. Thank-you so much to those who helped with my dilemma about the setting blocks a few weeks ago. I've looked at a few of the other finished tops on flickr and I am impressed by them all.

I got a little carried away on the backing. The silhouette of the clothes line in the photo was an accident, but maybe I could work with this. I was going to just sew together the cream fabrics in my stash into strips and keep going until I ended up with a square. Then I decided to use up all the remnants from the front too. It grew from there. Soon I was cutting bits already sewn together to add more colour. My dearest managed to watch most of Die Hard 4 in the “just 20 minutes” while I pieced the stripy section.

Tomorrow marks the end of my no fabric buying strategy. I was trying to only spend $15 a week. I started at the beginning of June. After overspending in July, I worked out that I couldn't buy any more until August 18. I have failed miserably.

In the interim, I have succumbed to the allure of:
5 balls of wool
An Amy Butler Card Kit
1m of boarder fabric for the jelly roll quilt
1m of batting for the days of the week quilt
5m of background & backing for the stars quilt (AND despite being the same name it wasn't an exact match)
3m of merino & wool knits at the global fabric sale
2m of stretch silk at the global fabric sale too
buttons, threads, magnets and steam a seam for various projects

FAR TOO MUCH !!

So after a but of re-jigging, it looks like I spend about 3 x the estimated amount on fabric each week. 2 x would have been amusing but this is getting a bit out of hand.

My problem is that I buy too much fabric and I possibly have too much fabric.

I am starting with piecing fabric I already have, along with the remnants and undersized blocks, to make the back of the seeing stars quilt.

Ideas and miracle cures to the craft budgeting problems would be warmly welcomed.

Stars 12 and 13 are done. Amanda Jean is so thoughtful. Yippee!! The last one didn't even need partial seems.

Now it's on to finish the setting blocks. Only 4 ½ to go.

I am an expert at mis-under-estimating my time. I had plans to sit down for a morning and get up to date with the star quilt along. I had three stars, 7 setting blocks and some sashing to get done. My plans went mysteriously awry.

My dearest was looking after little e for the morning so I had some clear time. I usually take about an hour to do one star. That includes getting every thing out, cutting stitching and putting away. I figure there should be some economy of scale in getting 3 done and besides, half of the setting blocks were already cut out. I set out at 9.

Two hours later, that star blocks were cut out. Note: cut out, no stitching yet.

An hour later, one block was sewn and half of Martha's star was spinning backwards. All spinning backwards would have been fine, but half meant more cutting out. While I didn't take photos of the gaff, believe me it is possible.

By this stage, 12, I was beginning to get liberal in my definition of a morning.

At 12:30 it was onto the setting blocks.

As 2 drew closer I had to admit defeat. I gave up on cutting more setting blocks. The sashing strips were a distant glimmer.

The last star goes block goes up in a number of hours. The quilt has been a learning curve for both the techniques and my time management. I usually shy away from samplers. Looking at the finished quilt, I am guessing we are looking a the the lemoyne star for the last one. I usually avoid these too, figuring life is too short for partial seems.

I might be able to catch up this weekend, just one star a few setting blocks and some sashing. Then again, I might be miss-under-estimating again.

I've been busily piecing away with the quilt along. I started with a plan and stitched half of the setting blocks accordingly. Now I'm wondering if I'm on the right path. Let me know what you think.



(I have been dabbling with the mosaic maker rather start on remaking the setting blocks, just imagine that the B&W ones are a darker colour)

Should I go with the original random prints for the setting blocks?



Or should I go with the patterned centre and use a darker print for all of the smaller squares? (I did warn you that you might need to imagine)

I have a morning this weekend set aside for stitching and was hoping to get everything in order for then. Sticking with the status quo would be easier, no remaking but I'm wondering if the other option is better.

Note also - neither option involves buying more fabric.

I am still going on the quilt along with only a few stars left. I was waiting until star 9, but sometimes I'm just a little impatient.

It's New Year here. We are about to cross the shortest day, in a few days, Matariki is beginning to rise in the sky at the dawn and it is time to plant.

Matariki is the Maori name for Pleiades, or known as “The Seven Sisters” in Greek mythology. There are slight regional variations as to when the exact new year is (what phase of the moon etc.) but is generally recognized as a time to begin the agricultural year. I'm impressed that this constellation has such a universal significance. It appears most star gazing culture have name for it be it Subaru in Japan (yes, the car, look closely at the logo) or Kilimia in Eastern Africa.

It seems only fitting to show the seventh star block in the seeing stars quilt.

To celebrate the new year, some Kiwiana Fabric will be winging it's way to SweetP , 20 Cent Mixture and Ikkinlala soon.

I will sew something else soon. I promise. I spent a good part of Saturday morning picking out fabrics for a jelly roll. In the end I came up with 27 fabrics for the class I'm enrolled for in 3 weeks. I can't wait.

For now, block 6 is done. My dearest is getting used to coming home and finding random quilt blocks sitting on the sideboard where the sun used to be.

This weeks block at the star quilt along is a bit of a curly one and so I made it twice. Once the hard way and then with a few modifications.

Amanda Jean's instructions include a number of bias seams (There are some tips for these at the end of the tutorial) and the end result is a block where every piece is set with the grain parallel to the finished edges. It is all very proper. After reading through, I thought I had found an easier way to do it. The end result has some of the pieces set at a diagonal so I left it for later. I started by following Amanda Jean's instructions and came up with the block above.


Then I tried it another way and came up with the one below. I needed to make a 12 1/2" star for a friend's quilt using sweet pea colours, hence the muted shades.



Instructions For Modified Block

The modified block is built up with 4 conventional quick pieced flying geese (pink), 4 square flying geese (mauve) and a diamond in the square (purple).



Materials

From the background cut

• One square 7 1/4" (cut on diagonal twice)
• One square 7" (finger press into 4 squares, do not cut yet)
  
• One square 5 1/2" (finger press into 4 triangle, do not cut yet)
  
• One square 3 1/2"

From the co-ordinating colours cut

• Eight 3" squares (shown here as 4 pink, 4 mauve)
• One 4 1/4" square (cunt on the diagonal twice)
  

1. Finger press the 3 1/2" background square into 4 squares. Use these lines to align the purple triangles when sewing the diamond in a square. Sew opposing sides and press. Repeat with remaining 2 sides.
   
   
   
   
   
2. Rule one diagonal line on the back of each 3" square, from corner to corner. Sew pink flying geese using four 3" squares and the 5 1/2" square and these instructions.
   
   
   
   
3. Make up the square flying geese using the 7" square and four 3" squares. First, finger press the 7" square into 4 squares. Bring outside edges to the centre to create 2 more vertical creases. Using the finger-press lines as a guide, line up one of the mauve squares on the 7" square - match the inked line with the horizontal crease, and the upper & lower points with the vertical crease at the quarter point. Then follow with the second mauve square.
   
   
   
   
4. Sew 1/4" on either side of the inked lines. Cut along inked line and press.
   
   
   
   
5. Place a mauve square on each pieced in step 4, as shown below. Sew 1/4" one each side of the inked line. Cut along the inked line and press.
   
   
6. You will now have all the units shown in the photo below. Sew the block together, starting with mauve flying geese to pink flying geese. Sew background triangles to either side of the top right and bottom left flying geese chains. Sew remaining units to either side of the diamond in a square. Sew all three pieces together.
   
   
   

Tips for Bias Seams

Fabric has more stretch in the bias direction so you need to take care not to distort pieces as you piece them.

• Reduce pressure on the sewing foot to reduce distortion from the feed dogs.
  
• If sewing bias edge to non bias edge, put the non bias piece on the bottom to reduce feed dog distortion.
• Press carefully with either vertical action, or running across the seam. Running the iron along the seam can distort.
• Where possible sew from the narrower end of a triangle to the wider end. This reduces stretching along the seam.

I hope this helps. The block is challenging but well worth trying.

I like to think of myself as an accurate quilter. I also like to think of myself as a brilliant singer, but anyone who has heard me singing in the car knows that one is a bit of a stretch.

If the points don't match up I have been known to resew them. Sometimes I will just let is slide, knowing that it always looks better from a distance. I figure that a little easing of the seams while sewing can fix almost anything.

This week I had to admit defeat.

I read the comments on the this weeks instructions thinking of course my block would be the right size.

This weeks block took two attempts. The first one looked fine as the points of the star went together. However the outer edges tell a different story.

There was a little jimmying with the needle position. Why modern machines only let you shift the needle to the left is beyond me. After much measuring, I managed to get it right and here it is.

I apologize to anyone who has ever received a block from me. While I'm not entirely accurate, I'm trying to be better. Honestly, I am.

Just briefly, blocks one and two are done. Some are blocking ahead, some are racing ahead. Me, I'm hanging out for the next one on Monday. I'm loving the anticipation - just what one will it be this week. And how is she going to do it?

Block 1



Block 2



I have been using the quick piecing method for flying geese that you can find here.

Two weeks ago I singed up for Amandajean's Star Quilt Along. For the first week I thought I really should get the colours chosen soon. For the second week I thought I really should get the blocks started soon. There's a lot of “really should”s around here, but now I'm caught up and loving the look of the blocks so far.

The size was the first thing that got me. I love the idea of quilting along, and so joined up when I heard about it. Then I got out the tape measure. 85 inches!!! that's the size of our current double bed quilt. We had been talking about getting (well, me sewing, husband vetting the colours) another quilt for us for a while. This just meant we had to decide faster.

I ferreted through a number of books and enthusiastically left markers on the pages of colour ways that I liked and thought might work. He just looked up from his book occasionally nodded or disapproved. We finally agreed on the colours in this one. At which point my dearest commented that it would take a really long time to cut out all those strips.

It appears he was considering the whole quilt not just the colours, so we will never know if there were any earlier colours schemes that might have been acceptable.

I even sat and watched Saturday's movie with calculator and paper in hand working out yardages. Can you guess what my day job was? Yes, I might need about 7 yards of background, so it is going to be plain. The setting block fabric on the other hand, really needs only 0.7m. Quilting in imperial, buying in metric, gets confusing some times.

I'm delighted with the colours in the end. Little e and I spent about an hour choosing (crawling) around Quilter's Lane trying to find just the right fabrics. I probably discarded two bolts for every one that I settled on. The colours are based around the fabric I used in these dresses. Little e approves, as does my dearest, so it is on with the blocks.