Scrappy Stars Done!

Day 347: The Scrappy Stars quilt is done and ready to be delivered to a friend who doesn't have the faintest inkling that they are on the short list of people who need a quilt to remember me by. I love gifting special people with surprise quilts! I finished the hand-quilting this morning, attached my "made by Crow with love" label to the back, and threw it in the wash to remove the stitching guide lines for the geometric design I'd drawn with a washable graphite pencil, the final step in its creation. Admittedly, I've worked on other quilts in between and even completed several, but when Scrappy Stars went on the quilting frame to be hand-stitched roughly two months ago, it took the place of honour in the living room. A quilting frame occupies a substantial bit of space, and it only went back in the box for a few months after I finished a hexagon quilt for my botany partners. It's not likely to return to storage any time soon, either. I mounted the Kittygons on it even before Scrappy Stars went in the laundry. When they're done, Double Wedding Ring will move to center stage. There's a good reason I don't have TV. I have too much else to do to waste my time in front of a box.

Scrappy Constellation

Day 286: The Scrappy Stars have been assembled as a full constellation! This quilt top grew beyond my original intentions when I decided to put "streets and alleys" between the blocks. Originally planned as a lap quilt, it will now measure 84" x 66" when finished. Although construction took far less time than any other quilt I've sewn, it was not as easy to piece as it might appear. Still, it is a design I may use again since it went together so quickly. The next phase, of course, is to do the actual hand-quilting which binds the backing and batting to the top, and at the very least, that will take 6-12 months. I still have a little work to do on the Hexagons and am debating whether I want to jump right into the Scrappy Stars or move the quilting frame out of my living room for a while. It's occupied a major portion of my floor space since 2017! The Constellation already has its destiny laid out: a surprise for another friend who has no idea it's headed her way. This is my way. For me, the enjoyment is in the making, not in the having.

Galactic Cluster Formation

Day 270: Another project which was laid aside temporarily in favour of other crafts was the piecing of the Scrappy Star quilt I started in September. I had almost all the blocks completed, but ran into a snag when the fabric I had wanted to use for the "streets and alleys" between them was out of stock. Ten months later, it is still unavailable, and none of Joann's current offerings appeals to me, so I chose to go with white, which sets the stars off nicely in any event. The finished quilt top will be seven rows of nine blocks with a narrow white border and a coloured binding. One of the prints used in the stars came all the way from New Zealand (the blue nautical motif in the star five down from the top left). Curiously, when I first laid the stars out on the floor to arrange, I discovered I had 58. At that point, there were two ways I could have gone: omit two and make the quilt 7 x 8 (56 blocks, as was my original intention), or make five more stars for a galactic cluster of 63. A quick forage in my quilting box supplied the fabrics necessary for the additional blocks. I'm still trying to figure out how I managed to miscalculate in the first place.