Wednesday, August 31, 2016

Good morning, starshine!

One of the projects I've most enjoyed working on this year is the Gwennie Inspired Medallion Quilt Along.  Each month has been a riot of fun, working with a new theme.
For August, we were given the stars!
Now I love stars.  There are so many kinds of stars blocks to make, and they're all beautiful.
But this made it a little bit hard to narrow down what kind of stars to make for my medallion borders.  How to choose, when I love them all?
I started with the obvious - maverick stars.


This is a form I haven't played with much, and I've always thought they looked like fun.  But they're harder to make than they look, and there's a lot of waste involved.   Since my medallion has gotten quite large, it would have taken a lot of these stars to make a border.
So, I kept playing.
I made other stars.


And still other stars.


And some more.


And more.


And I even remembered that I had some 4" sawtooth stars tucked away for a rainy day, so I pulled them out to play, too.


And there I was again, surrounded by blocks of all different sizes, and unable to choose between them.
You know where this is headed, right?
Yep, just like the sunflowers in the second round.  I decided to use all the kinds.
I started laying them out, and quickly decided that combining the stars with random vaguely-checkerboardish squares would be the best approach.




And I hit a wall around that point, as I mentioned in my last post, so I moved on to my smaller medallion while I waited (in vain, as it turned out) for the fabric fairy to deliver my stop border fabric.

I wanted to show these stars again, because they came about starting with seeing a block that Julie was playing with on her blog, and following her lead to Lynn Harris's Wind Farm from Every Last Piece.  I made a much simpler version, using a long triangle sewn as a flippy corner on a 2.5" pieced square.

There were half a dozen of them in various colors by the time I was done.  I really like the small spiky-ness of them.
I used a variety of stars and 1.5" strips to frame my smaller medallion quilt, and I'm quite happy with it.


This top now measures 36"x44", which is still a manageable size.  We'll see how big it ends up after the next stage.

So, with the smaller medallion done, and the clock ticking down to the end of the month, I went ahead and finished the larger one with the second choice stop border fabric.


Et voila!


I'm happy with my stars, and happy with my quilt-in-progress.  And it's a good thing, too, because it now stands at 64"x70" with a round still to go.  I really hadn't planned on making another bed-sized quilt this summer, but here it is!

And look what arrived in the mail late this afternoon -


The stripe is the one on the left.  It's a lot darker and purpler in real life; as usual I'm not good at getting purples to photograph true to color.  The other stripe is just because I'm trying to collect more stripes, and the jelly roll was their super-duper-daily-special with lots of batiks in purples and blues.  Because I'm a total sucker for batiks.  And purple...


So now I'm done with Phase Four of the QAL, and I'm rarin' to go on the next theme.  I'll be linking with Lori at Humble Quilts when the linky party goes live.  And then I'm going to go enjoy seeing what all the folks have been up to with their own starshine!  You all should come see, too!





34 comments:

Cynthia Brunz Designs said...

Both look amazing! Using "all the stars" was a brilliant idea. I wish I had joined in on the fun but I have too much on my plate right now. I can enjoy yours!

Nancy said...

How fun! I think you make the brightest, happiest quilts I've ever seen, Gayle. So I don't know if you've been to one of Gwen's workshops or read any of her books, but one of the things she talks about in her liberated medallion book is the "parts department" -- make a bunch of stars or half-square triangle squares, or flying geese, or whatever, and have them on hand. It seems like you did just that with your sawtooth stars.

Please tell me, what's the trick to getting your top to lie so flat?
--Nancy. (ndmessier @ aol.com)

Vireya said...

"All the stars" look fantastic together. This is such a lively, happy quilt.

Deb from frugal little bungalow said...

Love that you ended up using all of the stars in such a creative way!!

Quiltdivajulie said...

BOTH of your quilt tops are marvelous - so full of energy and color and life. Using "all" the stars was a terrific idea! I am not adding round 5 to my top as it is large enough right now. I plan to use Round 5 to make some sort of mini/small quilt (although I am not at all a 'fishy' person - definitely need to think on this one for a bit).

Libby in TN said...

I'm always amazed at what you pull together! Gwennie would be pleased. She's teaching at AQS Chattanooga this month and I hope to give her a hug. All this talk about medallions makes me want to finish the one I started in her retreat workshop.

Sally Trude said...

Truly magnificent. It's so wonderful to watch you pull together two amazing quilts and enjoy it so much too. How much time is spend figuring out border placement? Oh...yeah...and I wonder how much you're going to enjoy kitting these up for a BOM. Ha!

Chantal said...

The quilts look so different from each other. No one would be able to guess they were both made at the same with the same themes. Congrats on playing outside the box and achieving two different quilts. If I get an idea for something, I have a tendency of using it everywhere. You don't and I admire that. I don't know which one I prefer; both are wonderful, cheerful and totally wonky a la Gwennie. The best part is that everything works so well together. If you had used only one kind of star, I think it would have fall flat a little bit compared to the centre of the quilt. Kudos to you my friend. Amazing job!! Love it big time! ;^)

Karen said...

I would not have thought of using a variety of star blocks. Creative thought and good choice.

Cathy said...

Love your stars. Beautiful quilt. Hugs

Ariane said...

I love both of your medallion quilts so far. They are amazing. I can't wait to see what you come up with for the next round!!

Monica said...

My goodness, Gayle, what a vast amount of sewing! I know you are re-purposing some blocks, but that is impressive too. They both look amazing, so much energy and interest. I wonder what fishy thing you'll find? Great job!

Karen in Breezy Point said...

I love that you used all the different stars--so fun!!

Wendy Caton Reed said...

Wow! What a border! This is the most Gwennie so far. It is perfect. She would be so proud. I adore it. Baeutiful!

Angie in SoCal said...

Brilliant! And so colorful. Love them both.

Martha said...

I can hardly believe you're making two liberated quilts, and I agree with everyone else -- they're perfect examples of Gwennie style. Love, love them!!

Magpie Sue said...

I love your variety of stars. I'm a little jealous in fact! Wish I'd been able to make progress on my liberated medallion. Maybe this month... Both of your tops are so happy! (I'm not sure that purple stripe would have worked as well as the one you ended up using.)

Mystic Quilter said...

Both of these are real Gwennie Inspired, wonderful colours and glad you used all the stars!!

Linda @ kokaquilts said...

I love how both of these are looking! Great way to use all those star blocks, very creative!

Lori said...

I adore the way you brought in all the stars! They look great!
Your smaller medallion is looking so wonderful and fun!

Helen in the UK said...

Love how you incorporated all those different stars :)

CecileD said...

OMG ! This is a scrappy quilt with scrappy stars for sure !!
Lovely border but...how many stars have you done ?? Ah AH !

Danice G said...

Beautiful. I love your fabric choices.

Anonymous said...

I love both of these! They are the kind of quilts you can look at for days and not see everything. Isn't it fun to find a use for leftover bits and pieces?

Gypsy Quilter said...

I love the basket in the middle and all the happy, bright, scrappy goodness surrounding it. You're having waay too much fun.

Cynthia@wabi-sabi-quilts said...

So colorful and scrappy - I just love them both! You must have an enviable stash of terrific fabrics!

audrey said...

Lovely work! It's so wonderfully scrappy.:)

Robin said...

Your have done an amazing job! Wow, were you dedicated to getting the right star border, or what?

Sharon said...

Wow, you made an entire galaxy of stars! And it looks super! I love both of your quilts. Both of them are happy scrappy fun! I like how you added the checkerboard-ish squares - makes the stars stand out more.

Wanderingcatstudio said...

OMG! I'm totally star-struck!

marie Christine said...

Your stars are wonderful et your quilt , gorgeous...

LIttle Penguin Quilts said...

Your star border is brilliant! I loved it when you put all the sunflowers together, and I love the stars, too!

Cathy said...

They are both awesome! Love all the color and variety of stars. So wonder what's fishy in your world!

Sandi said...

Love all your varied stars, I stuck with wonky but in different sizes. I also thought labour day was our deadline so I was late posting. Fishy is going to be a bit of a challenge I think.