Hidden Stars Quilt

Remember this UFO?

This quilt was by far the closest to being done out of all the UFO's on list (you can see the full catalog of UFO's here).  

A Bit of Backstory

I was making this quilt for one of my aunts that had not so subtly hinting that she would like a quilt from me.  My aunt Connie is an awesome lady so I was happy to get started on something for her.  Connie is an artist and likes to paint with a lot of bright, bold colors so I knew that I wanted to factor that in to my fabric choice.  I ended up going with Cuzco by Katie Spain.

I bought a Layer Cake since there were so many good fabrics in line and headed straight for my pre-cut quilt pattern book.  There were a couple of things that I really liked about the Hidden Stars pattern.  One was the finished size, 50" x 60", quick and manageable.  Second was that I felt like it would really allow the saturated colors of the Cuzco collection to shine.  I choose a medium grey for my stars and got cutting.

The top went together pretty easily and quickly.  I was really pleased with how it turned out.  I chose a bright teal that has a tone on tone pattern and mostly reads like a solid (in the above photo it is the bottom print third from the left) for the backing.  I also picked a fun multi-color variegated thread for the quilting!  

My quilting plan was to just outline each element.  As an added bonus, the different thread colors really came to life against the solid grey stars.  I made a pretty good push and got about a third of the quilting done and then my motivation. just. ran. out.  

A New Kick in the Pants

An impending trip to the east coast finally spurred me to action.  I was going to Lake Placid, NY for a week for a work trip!  As soon as I found that out about the trip I knew I would be staying a few extra days to see family.  I was really happy when I found out that people were actually going to travel in from around the state to see me.  This included my Aunt Connie.  What could be better than getting to give her the quilt in person !?!

So I picked up the quilt and set back to work.  Once I finished the quilting, I thought, “Shoot, I don't have any binding fabric, and if I do, I don't know where to look for it.”  The trip to Fabric Depot was quick but then I realized that I two nights at the agility barn ahead of me, then Wednesday night I would need to pack for my Thursday morning flight.  Hmm, when was I going to bind this quilt?  

I managed to get the binding cut out and sewn together on Wednesday night and then at 5am on Thursday morning I got it stitched onto the quilt, eek!  After having carefully inspected the TSA website, I was pretty sure that I could get embroidery scissors, needle and thread on the plane :)

It was cramped quarters but sewing the binding sure made my six hour flight Dulles go by quickly!

P.S. My aunt was TOTALLY surprised and absolutely loved it!