Stormy Friendship Star: A Finished Mini Quilt

This is the first finish I'm posting for 2015. I've had a few others but with the snow stormy weather it's been hard to get any good photos. I was able to snap a few for this when the sun came out for a brief moment. 

This is also the first finish for Adrianne's (On The Windy Side) 2015 Finish Along. 

I started this mini when I was working on  another mini quilt top, so it's been done for many months. I used many of the same fabrics, vintage gingham, dots, and hearts, hand printed red cotton, and new anchors.  I added new storm cloud fabrics for borders. I made a plain red back with a vintage floral strip. When I layered them, I realized that I had made the quilt back too small, so added some dark blue borders on the back. 

I made a really scrappy pieced batting then I used cotton thread in matching colors to quilt inside the friendship star. For the rest of the quilt I used white pearl cotton.  I bound the edges with the fold over method that I like. I only bordered three sides in blue, so on the finished quilt front there's one red side. 

Stormy Friendship Star Mini measures approximately 29 1/2" x 29 1/2", but you can see, it's not exactly square. Is there a standard size or size limitation for mini quilts? This would be sweet wall hanging, or to drape over a chair or couch back. But it would also make a cute baby mat for a nautically inclined wee one. 

Bippi was probably most helpful on this quilt. But she did get disgruntled that it was so small. She prefers a larger size quilt to really give her room to sleep under. 

I'm also linking up with Kathy's Quilts today for Slow Sunday Stitching. Today she's talking about stress in stitching. Although the deadline for the Q1 finishes for the 2015 Finish Along is fast approaching, I feel pretty good about what I've accomplished the quarter.  Now I just have to make the time to blog about everything!

Friendship Mini: A Finished Quilt

Right on the heels of making my first friendship stars, I started playing around with the scale of the stars. And this mini quilt was born!

This quilt has a name and was made for someone. But if I revealed the name, it would give away the surprise!

This mini measures approximately 31" x 31" and the star is about 25" x 25". The center of the star has vintage heart fabric and new anchor fabric. The points are the same vintage polka dots that I backed the First Friendship Quilt with. The background for the star is vintage green gingham. The sashing is a new dark blue fabric with multi colored bubbles. 

The backing is a deep green floral/paisley that was a gift from a friend. It has stripes of the same anchors and bubbles from the front. Both are new fabric bought on Fabric.com, I believe. 

I did a lot of hand stitching with light blue pearl cotton in and around the star, but left the dark blues un-quilted. I used my fold over double stitched method for the binding.  I like how heavy the quilting is, but there are still areas that are blank. 

I'm pretty sure that I used a scrap of batting left over from the First Friendship Quilt for this mini. All the quilting makes this one pretty snuggly. It would be perfect for a baby quilt or baby mat, and it makes for a nice pet quilt, as well. 

Tom was most helpful in the making of this quilt. Bippi wanted to help, but it was too small to work on and have her sit under, so she was mostly just annoyed. 

I haven't labeled this mini, yet, but I have washed it. It's very soft and supple.  Unfortunately while taking these photos, I noticed that the binding did not catch in one part of the quilt!

I knew I was cutting it pretty close,  but I've never had this happen before!! So, along with a label, this quilt will need a little repair before it heads to it's new home. 

Since all my quilts are hand pieced, basted, quilted and bound, I like to link up with Kathy's Slow Stitching Sunday when I can!

First Friendship: A Finished Quilt + Blogger's Quilt Festival

The First Friendship Quilt started around April of 2014. It was intended for a friend, but was so well liked by my husband it will not make it to it's original destination (don't worry, there's another quilt in the works for that person). Although that would be an interesting reason for it's name, the actual reason is much more simple. I named this quilt First Friendship bc it contains the first Friendship Star blocks I have ever made, and symbolizes the beginning of my foray into traditional quilt blocks. 

Although, truthfully I did make a log cabin quilt in 2013. You can see it in the portfolio section. 

As with all my quilts, this one is done entirely by hand. It's cut, pieced, basted and bound by me, by hand with one or more cats in tow. I started making the stars out of vintage heart fabric, fat quarters and scraps I had in my stash. I also used a collection of hand printed fabric I bought on ebay. I put them together with more printed fabric, more FQ and a vintage green floral for sashing. I mitered the corners of the outer sashing. 

The back has one friendship star, but in more of the same volume as it's self. I guess it would be considered low volume or low contrast, at least. The star is surrounded by a sea of green vintage polkadot fabric. 

The back has one low volume start on the back.  

I can't remember what batting I used. I think it was some that I had had left over from another project. I really enjoy using Quilter's Dream, but I often have vintage batting, or other varieties that I have tried or that were on sale. I do piece my batting when needed, or to use up scraps, but I do remember that this one was whole. 

I tried to keep this quilt relatively free of cat hair, but that never really works out. Several of the cats helped me with this quilt, but surprisingly there wasn't a stand out helper. 

I quilted this quilt with white pearl cotton. I went around the piecing of each star and then did an X design for the sashings. To bind the quilt I folded over the backing. I usually use either a folded over binding with two rows of stitches, or a roll over with one row of stitches, but this binding is somewhere in between. 

The quilting on the back doesn't match up with the back star, but still makes for an interesting design. 

one backwards star, unintentional. 

Red, tan, green, and blue. 

I'm calling this a September finish, even though the last few stitches of the binding were done October 1st. I even brought this quilt on vacation with me, in order to get it finished. The house we stayed in was pretty cute, so I was able to take some photos there!

First Friendship Quilt is approximately 45" x 57". 

Although I'm calling this quilt done, I haven't put a label on it yet. I am going to try and label all my quilts going forward and be more diligent about keeping my quilt journal. I haven't made an entry about this quilt, yet!

Finished quilt hanging out in Cape May, NJ. 

I'm entering this quilt in the The Bloggers Quilt Festival at Amy's Creative Side in the Hand Quilted category. This will be my first year participating and it's been wonderful to see all the amazing quilt work. I can't wait to start voting!