Appliqueing Star Dance

The rain system that had been over northern Indiana for the last several weeks has finally moved out and we've got sunshine! 

After several days without any precipitation, we can finally get into the fields. Spring planting has been seriously delayed and every farmer in our area is going as hard and fast as they can.

This week we big baled our 18 acre hay field.  Normally we are able to make four cuttings of hay a season but that may not happen this year because of the late first cutting.

I was not able spend as much time on hand work this week because of being outside. I'm not complaining, I'm very thankful we can be in the fields and I enjoy being outside after the long, long, long winter. 

Star Dance is almost finished. I need to add the circles to the center of the flower star blocks. I also want to add more circles to the border. I think the applique looks rather bare in some places.

She measures measures 60" x 70". I've changed the pattern by piecing more blocks and I putting the stars on point. 

I've mentioned several times in posts that Star Dance was my 2017 RSC quilt. Actually Star Dance was not my only 2017 RSC project.  I had a second project, a 4-Patch summer quilt which we are using now since it has finally warmed up.

Linking to Scrap Happy Saturday, Sew Can She, Kathy's Slow Stitching Sunday

Pink Shoo-flys

I intended to piece pink shoo-fly blocks for Star Dance at retreat. All the HST's were pieced but when I went to sew the individual blocks, I had forgotten the squares for the center!

Here are the pink and red shoo-fly block even though they were supposed to have been made in April. Better late then never! I'm only showing half of the blocks made, 30 in pink . . .

32 in Reds. I don't want to take a whole year to finish Star Dance so I'm making the color of the month along with a related color.

Green and teals have been pulled to make the shoo-fly blocks for May. The blocks will finish at 4". 

This is a link to the Star Dance pattern. My Star Dance quilt won't look exactly like the pattern. 

Linking to Scrap Happy Saturday, Oh Scrap.

Star Dance to be Finished in 2022!

My goal for 2022 is to finish up RSC projects already started.

Back in 2018 I finished piecing a flimsy called Star Dance. Here is a link to the last post I wrote about Star Dance. She has been waiting to be quilted for several years.

Every time I decided she was next on the hand quilting frame, she said No!, she wants to be made larger. In 2022, I am going to finally add size to this flimsy and make her into bed quilt. Of course she'll be hand quilted.

She measures 60" by 70" right now.

Here is a link to the Star Dance pattern.

I'm envisioning a border of sawtooth stars. I took the time to sketch out my plan and made measurements. I need forty 6" stars but that works out to only 4 stars a month for 10 months. I want to move faster than that. 

Pink is related to red and since the pink fabrics are stored in the same box as the red fabrics, I made both colors this month. 

Linking to Scrap Happy Saturday, Patchwork & Quilts, Oh Scrap

Appliqueing Star Dance

Another corner of Star Dance has been appliqued. The applique on the right side  corner was completed this week.

Star Dance was my 2017 RSC project. I decided I couldn't start a new RSC project until the Star Dance flimsy is completed.

Linking to Scrap Happy Saturday, Slow Stitching Sunday.

Star Dance & Week 4, Quilting Nearly Insane

The appliqueing has started on the border of Star Dance. I just couldn't decide what to use for the vine but I finally settled on a greenish/brown/yellow batik which I had on hand.

I started sewing the stars for Star Dance in February or March 2017 for RSC. There are so many inspiring projects that quilters are making for the RSC but I want to finish Star Dance before starting another RSC project.

After a long weekend of sewing on my Baby Lock, it felt good to sit and hand quilt Nearly Insane this week. Again I was able to do a full row. And, because someone always asks the size in the comments, the blocks finish at 6".

Left border and the first block.

.

Seventh block and right side border.

And a close up of the 7th block. I didn't stitch in the ditch on this block. I used a Baptist Fan design which looks more interesting. The curves are 1/2" apart. 

Linking to Scrap Happy Saturday, Kathy's Slow Sunday Stitching, Quilting is More Fun than Housework, Show & Tell Monday With Bambi, Em's Scrapbag, Love Laugh Quilt, BOM's Away, Fiber Tuesday, Esther's Wednesday WOW!

Star Dance is a Flimsy!

The first post about Star Dance was back in 2017 when I started piecing the stars using the color of the month from RSC. In 2018 I appliqued the border and finished the lap quilt. She then went into the 'to be quilted closet'. I did pull her from the closet several times with the intention of hand quilting her but she always argued with me. She said she wasn't finished!

In 2022 I was going to make her larger by adding a border of sawtooth stars, again using the color of the month from RSC. But she said the stars were too large, they didn't blend with the smaller center stars, so then I pieced a lot of shoofly blocks, 200 of them!

It was too breezy outside for pictures so these indoor pictures will have to work.

I had thought to make her large enough to for our bed but I didn't have enough of the border fabric. I purchased the border fabric over a year ago so it's long gone. 

I'll see how much she shrinks after being quilted and washed. I might use her anyway even if she's somewhat small.

Finally she's finished! She's actually bagged and going to the long arm quilter next week! She is ok with machine quilting which is good because I don't think I have enough patience for hand quilting her.

As of now she measures 95" by 105".

Here is a link to more posts about Star Dance. Blogger did not place them in consecutive order.

Here is a link to the Star Dance pattern.

Linking to Scrap Happy Saturday, Patchwork & Quilts, Oh Scrap

Star Dance, the Applique Border

In 2017, I participated in the RSC color of the month by piecing Star Dance blocks. In November 2017, I sewed the blocks together to make the center of the quilt.

Two weeks ago I sewed the borders onto the center body, a good project to do on a very snowy day. I had originally planned to machine applique the borders at my guild retreat the first weekend in March. Well, I looked at the pattern and decided I really would like the borders better if I hand applique instead of machine applique. So, no applique to show today.

Once I'm finished with the Pastor's Attic borders, then Star Dance will be the next applique project. My list of unfinished projects to be sewn into flimsies is going very slowly.

Glenda mentioned that I hadn't published pictures of snow this winter so I took some before the 10" we received in two days melted.

The snowed piled on the steps up to our porch so that's where I took the picture of Star Dance.

We live on top of a hill. I walked to the curve in our drive and took some pictures of fields.

This first picture is look northeast, across the pasture. The line of trees shows the edge of the creek that separates our farm from our neighbors.

The faint brown line going through the field is fencing which divides the pasture from cropland.

Now we are looking southeast, across the pasture, crossing the road and into a different neighbor's field. Again the line of trees is the edge of the creek. 

If you enlarge this picture really large, you can see their beef cattle in the background. The snowpile by the edge of the driveway is 4" high where my husband has pushed it with the skid loader.

All our cattle have names. 

This is Emily wondering when they'll be able to graze again in the pasture.

And Missie is enjoying the warmth from the sunshine.

The day after I took the above pictures, the temperature rose above freezing, then we had fog. 

I'm standing on the porch looking southeast into the cow pasture.

Now I'm looking straight south at our son's home. You can see it faintly behind the one evergreen tree.

That evening it rained and the fog dissipated but since the ground is still frozen we have water standing.

Just this week the temperature rose to 60 degrees and we had several days of rain. The snow melted but the ground was still frozen so . . . flooding. This first picture is looking northeast across the pasture into the cropland, same as the very top picture. The creek has overflowed 

Looking southeast toward the road.

I'm looking forward to green grass, warm temperatures, going barefoot and of course, fresh tomatoes!

Linking to  A Quilting Reader's Garden,  Show Off Saturday, Scrap Happy Saturday, Oh Scrap, Love Laugh Quilt, Show & Tell With Bambi, BOM's Away, Em's Scrapbag

Redo!

For the 2022 RSC challenge, I had decided in January that I was going to make 6" finished sawtooth stars as a way to enlarge my Star Dance quilt. I made stars for that purpose in January and February.

I pulled yellow and orange fabrics to make the stars for March, then I thought, are these stars going to look right? I thought I knew the size of the finished stars in the quilt center, 5", but decided I had better measure to be sure.

Guess what! They finish at 4"! When I randomly displayed the stars beside the center, they did not look right, the 6" stars overwhelmed the little stars. The sawtooth stars have been bagged and put aside for another day, possibly a future RSC project but not this year.

When Star Dance came out of the closet, I found a note pinned onto the side, it said to make 4.5" finished shoofly blocks. That size will work so I prepped fabric and sewed the shooflies, 28 of them! I'll go back and make red and teal blocks sometime.

This quilt is very picky about how she is finished!

The pattern for Star Dance is located here. My Star Dance is not made exactly like the pattern design.

Linking to Put Your Foot Down, Needle & Thread Thursday, Peacock Party, TGIFF!, Finished Or Not Friday, Off the Wall Friday, Patchwork & Quilts, Scrap Happy Saturday, Oh Scrap.

Star Dance

I started piecing the original blocks for Star Dance way back in January 2017 in conjunction with the RSC. I had thought this would be a 2 year project but it's been 6 years and she is finally finished!

I requested Lori Null use Raindrops on Water for the quilting design and it is perfect! She set the curves 1/2" apart.

Star Dance finishes at 94" by 105" which I consider a large queen sized quilt. She's a little small for our king sized bed but we're using her anyway. I think she makes a lovely quilt for summer.

I know the border looks green but it's not. It's a soft white but there are very faint light green ghost leaves in the background and my phone pulls out the green.

I decided I would use brighter fabric for the binding. I looked in my brights box and found these strips from a jelly roll. I thought they would kind of give a striped effect. There were 5 different colors of the same design with 2 strips of each color. I was concerned there wouldn't be quite enough length so I added 2 short strips of yellow/orange fabric.

You can see in the above picture that the background of the border is white and not green. See the ghost leaves?

The backing fabric is a very subtle white floral on white fabric. I can't capture the flowers with the phone. The fabric reminds me of the tablecloths my mother used to use for holiday meals.

It feel good to have a long time UFQ finished. 

Here is a link to the Star Dance pattern.

Linking to Put Your Foot Down, TGIFF!, Peacock Party,  Finished or Not  Friday, Off the Wall Friday, Beauty Pageant, Patchwork & Quilts, Scrap Happy Saturday, Oh Scrap

Star Dance Blocks

I put a lot of miles on my sewing machine last week working on many projects. This week we're putting all our efforts into making hay so I'm out in the fields driving tractor. This week's posts were written last Saturday and are highlighting what I worked on.

I took Nearly Insane down from the display wall because she became too large for it. My wall looked so empty so I pinned all the Star Dance blocks that I had pieced so far to the display wall. Don't they look cute?

Several weeks ago, a friend called while I was sewing and we chatted for a long time. As we talked away, I kept noticing the stars and thinking the cutest star was the green star (bottom center) that had 2 different fabrics in it. I decided to change things up for the June stars.

I added red to three of the blocks.

These blocks are all yellow but I mixed the fabrics. In the top right block, I made the center with yellow fabric and the corners with white. These changes don't show very much.

The final 3 have the same fabric in each block.

The yellow stars brightens up the rest of the stars. I see I need to make more purple stars.

This pattern is called Star Dance. The stars finish at 4". My quilt will be larger than the pattern.

Linking to - My Quilt Infatuation, Finished Or Not Friday, Confessions of a Fabric Addict, TGIFF!, Crazy Mom Quilts, Show Off Saturday, Scrap Happy Saturday

Star Dance

The 3rd corner of the Star Dance border is completed. The star blocks were pieced in 2017 for the RSC. I had decided that I wouldn't start a new RSC project this year until Star Dance was completed into a flimsy. I'm getting close!

I would have like to take outside pictures but it was extremely windy and I didn't want to chase the quilt across the yard.

A view of the whole quilt.

A closer view of the applique completed this week.

Close up view of the corner.

Kathi asked for a close up of one of the stars so here it is.

Linking to Scrap Happy Saturday, Slow Sunday Stitching, Show & Tell Monday, Love Laugh Quilt, Em's Scrapbag, Fiber Tuesday, Esther's Wednesday WOW!

Rainbow Challenge

I was feeling pretty good last Saturday when I posted my purple blocks for the RSC. But then I got to thinking about my blocks, thinking about how big to make the quilt, how to finish it, how to lay the blocks out and on and  on and on. You know what I mean, we all do this.

I figured up how many blocks I needed but then I decided it needs a border to finish it off. What it really needs is an applique border and I have a pattern that will be perfect for a rainbow quilt.

I dug through my pattern basket and pulled out Star Dance designed by Jill Finley. I had purchased this pattern several years ago but never got around to doing anything with it. The border would be perfect for my quilt.

Then I looked at the Star Dance pattern. Those stars are so cute but they finish at 4"! But if I just make a few a month . . . I can do that.

So I did. Here are my 4 purple Star Dance star blocks.

Aren't they cute? There are 39 blocks in the pattern. The pattern says the quilt finishes at 36".  That size is too small for me so this is going to be a 2 year project and made into a larger quilt.

I also made 3 more blocks for the 4-patch rainbow quilt. I'm using the 4-patches left over from my postage stamp journey.

So once again, my blocks have been completed for January and I'm ready for February's color.

Linking to Scrap Happy Saturday, DrEAMi!.