Let Your Star Shine

Rather an à propos title for today's post. For me, and for my quilt!

What a cutie-patootie holding up my quilt, photographed in Michigan somewhere!

EEEP! as they say.  I am so very pleased to announce that I have another quilt in Benartex's e-zine Modern By the Yard. And I can finally show you! It's in their latest edition which came out today, and is available for free download (no trees were killed; I LOVE LOVE that) by clicking on that link or on the front cover image below.

I had not come up with a cool name for the quilt, calling it Framed Star (yawn) while I was making the test one, and still didn't have any ideas when I was making the one with the oh-so-lovely Nancy Halvorsen fabric by Benartex, which is called 'Bree', after her granddaughter. I just love the name they came up with for my quilt.

Name they came up with...  Hold the phone! The winner from the Meadow Dance blog hop! A fat quarter stack of those luscious fabrics goes to.....

I couldn't stay up until midnight, so I used the random number generator to draw a number this morning after I got home from yoga. I only had to draw twice this time; sadly the first number drawn was a no-reply who didn't leave an email address. Then I took a few minutes to double-check that Lori does indeed follow me (you can do that? YUP and I always check. btw I don't have Facebook, just sayin'...) I've already emailed Lori to let her know the great news.

Here's a link for those of you who use Blogger for your blogs if you want to check your email subscribers list. https://feedburner.google.com
If you think you might need help figuring it out, let me know in the comments and I will maybe write up a tutorial for how to do it. It always takes me a few minutes to figure it out myself because I only check my list during giveaways, but it is pretty straightforward.  I am tickled pink to see I now have 358 email subscribers! Woot! Woot! Thank you all. Note that this is different from bloglovin followers. Check my sidebar for links if you wish to become a follower. 😊

Okay back to the topic at hand.

This quilt has a story. I love love stories, always have, always will, both reading and telling. This particular one has several 'coincidences'.

Two renditions!

In early July, Lisa Ruble, Modern by the Yard editor, sent me an email asking if I had any designs for her for the upcoming issue of the e-zine. I had just got back from three unplanned weeks out in Alberta, staying with my grandson Brady and daughter Brianne after the tragic death of Brady's dad on Father's Day; my husband was still out there. Here is the post where I wrote about it if you missed it.  So I looked through my trusty graph paper book (didn't even think of looking in my Quiltography app!) and sent her a few, one of which I'd drawn while living with B&B.

Although I hadn't taken any sewing with me, for that trip, I did grab my graph paper etc., and was able to sketch a bit here and there. On July 6, Brady asked if he could draw a quilt design, and I said sure, opening to this page which had the playing around with HRTs design at the top of the page. I started to turn the page to a fresh one, and he said, "Nana, can I put a border around this design?" Sure he could. I quickly sketched my star type idea below, and said, "Have at 'er."  That design of his grew up into an actual lap mat I made for his birthday for when he's watching TV and having his after-school snack, or his breakfast on the weekend! You can read about his quilt, Fractured Pieces, here.

While he drew, I started another design, Framed Star, which is one of the ones I sent to Lisa. I didn't have any size in mind, block maybe? Well, didn't it turn out to be the one she wanted! That, in itself, that I drew it at Brianne's house, with Brady happily making a border and scribbling, no not scribbling, making "a big diamond, Nana," sitting right beside me, gave me a warm fuzzy feeling. Lisa said how about making it as one giant block, like 36" square so I said sure!

Test quilt - I will write about this one tomorrow but note that the royal blue fabric with silver stars is from an earlier quilt I was supposed to make for then teenage Brianne's new room

Lisa gave me two choices of fabric lines, one of which ended up not being available after all, and so the line I was given to choose prints from is "Bree" by one of my all-time favourite designers, Nancy Halvorsen. I already own some of her older fabric, and it is among my all-time favourite. Here is a runner I made that happens to be still on my table as I haven't switched over to Autumn décor yet.

She has an Art to Heart book coming out with projects using Bree.

I also made a mystery table centre mat for a guild retreat, used a bit of the ivories in a quilted jacket, and used bits and pieces in gifts for various friends:

A quilt or two NEEDS to grow up from this beautiful pile of 'True Friends' fabric right?!

Back to the newest beautiful fabric at hand, named 'Bree'?  No way.  Brianne is Brady's mum, always Brianne to us, but...not at her work and amongst most of her friends, however, where she is Bri.

So my second published in a magazine pattern has lots of personal meaning.

The fabric arrived, just gorgeous:

And I got to work. In no time I had a top and then put it on Avril to start quilting. I was going to do a wavy lines quilting motif on this one too, but that pure white just begged for some custom quilting. And so..

I pulled out Angela Walters' Shape by Shape books one of which had the feathers design in squares, which makes a cool wreath when done. I did a curved point-to-point design in the inner star points and dot to dot work in the background of the inner star.

Ribbon candy went nicely in the centre frame, and then another larger row of ribbon candy in the next round. I love the effect as it weaves behind the large star points.

I did straight lines radiating out in the outer star points. Fancy quilting wouldn't have shown anyhow, and besides, that pretty fabric wants to be the star, right?! I wasn't sure about the orange/yellow for the binding, as I lean to darker bindings, but went with Lisa's suggestion, and wow, it sure gives it a great frame doesn't it? It just glows, and ties in with the centre star too, (obvi), not to mention the name of the quilt!

Snort! Had to leave my toes, at the time totally unnoticed, in the photo!

It all came together so well. For the quilting I used a white Isacord polyester (Leah Day's favourite thread) in all of the quilt except for a deep aquamarine Isacord in the royal blue fabric.

The back is another great fabric in the line:

The quilting shows up nicely on the back.

Close-up of the label.  I did remember, or wait, no, I think I had to go back in after ripping out the binding to add my mmm! quilts label...this quilt had a fair share of ripping. Sometimes things go together tickety-boo, other times, not so much. I do not usually rip out quilting stitches, but I had to here when I'd forgotten to do TWO lines of a frame around ribbon candy, for example.

That orange/yellow binding works wonderfully with the backing too, doesn't it?

One last shot in the sun's setting rays:

Texture.  Yum!

Quilt Stats:
Pattern:  Original design featured in Modern by the Yard
Size: 36.5 X 36.5"
Fabric:  Benartex 'Bree' by Nancy Halvorsen
Batting: Warm 'n Natural
Quilted: on my Avanté, Avril (Agh! I keep forgetting to note the stitch count!)
Threads:  pieced with Gütermann cotton; quilted with Isacord 40 wt in white 0015 and teal 4421

I haven't decided whether I will sell both of these quilts in my Etsy shop, (no babies in my world right now, sniff, unless you count a new darling grand-kitten. (teaser for the next post; this one's long enough!). However, how I love using these small quilts is taking them to yoga class. I'd rather sit on or  cover myself up with my own quilt or blanket, thank you! I've encouraged my students to bring little quilts like this and there are now four of us who regularly do! Love it.

Linking up all over the place this week! Links in the Linky Parties up top, and I'll add to the list below as the week progresses.

Hop over to grab your copy of the e-zine that has the pattern (pretty slick if I do say so myself) for how to piece the huge star points onto the frame, no mitres needed! And if, just if, you need batting for this quick-to-make little gem, Connecting Threads (affiliate link) has a great sale on theirs, which I've taken advantage of, many a time. 30% off. Um I just checked to get the percentage, and the fabric up to 60% off open stock sale is still on as is the 30% off thread sale...gosh the whole dang site seems to have one kind of sale or another going on! And pretty Fall fabrics at 6.96/yard? Like all day long? I may have a month of Sunday stashes with all these sales and we're not even at Black Friday deals yet, egad.

Linking up:
Free Motion by the River
Quilt Fabrication
Sew Fresh Quilts
Crazy Mom Quilts
Confessions of a Fabric Addict
Busy Hands Quilts
TGIFF at Kathy's Kwilts and More