New Pictures of Mrs.Starlight, a Queen Size Quilt in Starlit Evening Pattern

Mrs.Starlight has been removed from her place of glory on the living room wall in preparation for my next living room decor redo.  The new quilt will be revealed soon - when I get the time.

We are currently preparing for our oldest son's homeschool graduation party and are super busy getting some house projects done.  I have repainted the guest bath in preparation for shower doors.  It has taken us nine years to complete this bathroom, but it is finally happening due to the number of guests arriving this coming weekend!  I'll do a bathroom reveal soon, too!

This week is food prep week.  We are having a dinner party with 60-135 guests. {Lots of RSVPs still out.}  All of this in the midst of driving to town three times a day for driver's ed and ballet for the last two weeks and the coming two weeks, also!  FYI, town is less than 10 miles each way, just so you know!  Life is busy and so good!  I am so grateful that my health is so much better that even taking on this much at one time is a possibility!

Back to Mrs.Starlight!  Here she is on a bed; a much different view than on a wall. She is delightful!

Mrs.Starlight is shown on a queen-sized waterbed which with its side rails is 8" wider and 8"longer than a queen-sized mattress.  She will have a longer overhang on a standard mattress and will have a pillow tuck at the top.  I could take a picture on my son's queen bed, but then I'd have to clean the room!  NOT!

All printed fabrics for the quilt top, backing, and binding are from the Artful Home line by Heather Mulder Peterson for Anka's Treasures.  The black is Kona Solid.

This complicated-looking pattern is broken down step-by-step in the excellent instructions given by Heather Peterson and is more doable than it might appear, but still not for beginners.  If you like to have several projects going at a time, you might consider this pattern.  It is a nice one to begin and then work on in stages. This is usually how I quilt because I easily get bored with the current fabric and pattern and want to start a new one.  My UFO pile is taking over my cutting table!

The red shown below is off-color; Mrs.Starlight's red is a deep, rich red, nothing pinkish about it.

I love striped bindings!

You can read my first post about Mrs.Starlight HERE.

Quilt Stats:

• Pattern:  Starlit Evening by Anka's Treasures, found in this book.
• Size:  85" x 105"
• Fabric for the Top, Backing and Binding:  Artful Home by Heather Mulder Peterson for Henry Glass Fabrics, along with Kona Solid Black.
• Batting:  80/20 Hobbs in black
• Quilting:  Allover medium meandering in black thread on Mrs.Singer, my antique 31-15 mounted on a long-arm quilting frame.
• Binding:  Double fold, attached by machine.
• Value:  Heartwarming!

Seaside Cottage Table Runners

This week I finished two Seaside Cottage table runners.  I love their wintery, holiday look! Simple strips, adding in a few prints from other lines. Hourglass blocks sashed with ombre dot fabric in aqua.

The backing on both quilts is the same!  It would also look great as the top!

Quilt Stats for Strip Table Runner:

• Pattern:  Strips
• Fabric:  Seaside Cottage with a few other fabrics tossed in.
• Size:  13.5" x 43.5"
• Batting:  100% cotton, thin
• Quilting: Allover dense meandering in bright red thread
• Backing:  Seaside Cottage
• Binding:  Robert Kaufman white dots on red
• Value:  Wintery goodness!

Quilt Stats for Hourglass Table Runner:

• Pattern:  Hourglass blocks
• Fabric:  Seaside Cottage with an ombre dot in aqua
• Size:  14.5" x 41"
• Batting:  100% cotton, thin
• Quilting: Allover dense meandering in bright red thread
• Backing:  Seaside Cottage
• Binding:  Robert Kaufman white dots on red
• Value:  Wintery goodness!

These quilts are for sale at BusyHandsQuilts on Etsy!

Linking to:

Crazy Mom Quilts

Seaside Cottage Small Lap / Baby Quilt and a Coupon Code!

A few of the prints from the Seaside Cottage fabric collection are perfect for a winter holiday quilt.  Luscious red, gray, and aqua!  The aqua strips are an ombre dot fabric.  Love the variation! And since you are surely wondering, yes, I did buy this fabric during my self-imposed fabric-buying moratorium - it was 50% off at my local quilt shop, so I buckled and bought every scrap they had left - something like 13 yards!  I'm glad that one of the LQS's has kept their regular prices under $10 per yard for quilting fabric, 'cause the store where I bought the aqua fabric hasn't, and it was $11.25 a yard! Quilted in bright red - for extra fun! Fun bindings are a must - bright red with white polka dots! Backing matches perfectly! Quilt Stats:

• Pattern:  Just strips to let the fabric shine!
• Size:  40" x 46", perfect small lap or larger baby size.
• Fabric:  Seaside Cottage by Heather Mulder Peterson for Henry Glass Fabrics and an aqua ombre dot from my LQS.
• Batting:  100% cotton, thin
• Backing:  Seaside Cottage by Heather Mulder Peterson for Henry Glass Fabrics.
• Quilting:  Allover dense meandering in bright red thread - sew fun!
• Binding:  Red with white polka dots by Robert Kaufman

This quilt is listed for sale in my Etsy shop!

Enter QUILTLOVE13 at checkout and save 10% in my shop!

$25 minimum purchase required.

And in case you need yarn or fabric,  Craftsy is having a huge sale this week, up to 65% off fabric and 80% off yarn! Linking to: Crazy Mom Quilts

Meet Mrs.Starlight - My New Living Room Quilt!

... Meet Mrs.Starlight ... She's warming up my living room and making it cozy! She is so long that I had to raise the quilt rack a foot ... well, my husband did that because I couldn't reach that high even on the platform ladder.  And the bottom of the quilt is still hidden behind the sofa!
This pattern is not for the faint of heart.  There are many bias edges to work with - every star has 18 bias edges in it!  The author does give directions as to which strip to put on top when sewing to prevent the bias edge from stretching, and that is the black strip {the non-bias one}.  This has to do with the feed dogs on the bottom feeding a tiny bit faster than the top layer of fabric, so the bias edge on the bottom is very gently eased in.  
Another thing I really love about patterns from Anka's Treasures is that the author, Heather Mulder Peterson, always includes which direction to iron each seam so they butt together when they are sewed together again.  And this information is so important in this pattern which has a lot of cutting, sewing, re-positioning, and then cutting and sewing again ... and again, and still the seams butt together so nicely.
I struggled with the borders, especially that outer patchwork border.  Getting the border to end with a full-sized square in the corner was a trick, and I made many adjustments and took out and re-sewed many seams before I got it just right.
The easiest part of the whole quilt was the binding - did you see it?  It is luscious!  My first-ever bias binding!  NOT!  Ha Ha!  This line of fabric comes with a stripe on the diagonal which I knew from the start would be the binding, so that is just a regular binding, not bias!  You'll probably see it soon as a focus fabric in toss pillows for the sofas.  I've got lots since it went on clearance at my local LQS awhile back {and I won't tell you if that was before or after the fabric moratorium came into effect ... a girl's got to have some secrets, ya' know!}.  Okay, I'll tell you ... I really don't remember.  :}
The batting is black, and I am sure glad I used it since white batting tends to migrate through in the quilting process, and this is very noticeable on dark fabrics.  If you do not have this problem, maybe you could tell me what size needle you use to machine quilt?  The black was a folded/rolled package of batting, and the large wrinkles and waves it came with reminded me how much nicer it is to use a huge roll of batting.  The batting is only folded once on the roll, so the bunching and wrinkles are eliminated.  It is also tons cheaper to buy it on a 25-yard roll at JoAnn's with a coupon rather than individually by the bag.  I usually buy a roll for under $110, seriously.
The backing of the quilt {of which I forgot to take a picture} is the same fabric as the green star in the lower right edge of the picture above {also thanks to the clearance sale downtown ... I would not have used a coordinate for the backing if it hadn't been 50% off}.  Why don't you just go take a picture since it is on your living room wall, you ask?  Nope, I ain't taking the tiny nail out of the corner where the corners are tacked to the wall.  It took way too much figuring and adjusting and measuring to get it to look sort of straight to nonchalantly pull the nail out of the wall!  Hanging a quilt on the wall is nothing like putting it on a bed - in my experience, it is impossible to get them to hang perfectly flat, straight, and square, especially when they are this big with so many bias seams.
Quilt Stats:

• Pattern:  Starlit Evening by Anka's Treasures, found in this book.
• Size:  85" x 105"
• Fabric for the Top, Backing and Binding:  Artful Home by Heather Mulder Peterson for Henry Glass Fabrics.
• Batting:  80/20 Hobbs in black
• Quilting:  Allover medium meandering in black thread on Mrs.Singer, my antique 31-15 mounted on a long-arm quilting frame.
• Binding:  Double fold, attached by machine.
• Value:  My new cozy winter quilt!

Sorry, this quilt is not for sale in my Etsy shop as most of the quilts I make are.  She is mine, all mine!  Nor do I plan to make this quilt available as a custom order because it is too time-consuming.  However, you just might see another quilt in this pattern come spring - made from California Girl for my spring decorations - the blocks are half done!

Linking to:
Crazy Mom Quilts

Mrs.Starlight - A Queen Quilt for My Living Room Wall

I am updating my living room decorations.  Here is a peek at the corner of the quilt that will hang on the HUGE wall.  It is so big that nothing could fill it other than a QUILT, of course!  {Although DH says that a moose head would look really nice there!}   This quilt was actually begun in the spring of this year, but was set aside because it was too wintry to be working on in the spring and summer!  It will be perfect for winter decorations in the living room.  I am also making quilted valances for the six windows and at least one table topper.  {And that black seam that looks crooked below is hiding its straightness behind a wrinkle.} Mrs.Starlight is on the living room floor, layered with backing and batting, heading out to Mrs.Singer's rails for her time of glory there.  She was put on the quilt rails on Friday, and Saturday I began quilting her when a belt on Mrs.Singer broke.  No worries.  They are easy to replace ... if you have a spare one, which I don't! It is a good thing I am not planning on entering this quilt { or any quilt } into the Blogger's Quilt Festival happening right now!  I would be freaking out! Mrs.Starlight is made from the Artful Home collection by Heather Mulder Peterson for Henry Glass Fabrics in the Starlit Evening pattern, also by HMP for Anka's Treasures.  The pattern can be found in her book, Living Large 2.