Mini Lone Star

I made this mini Lone Star quilt with scraps from my full Lone Star quilt (which y'all will be seeing again tomorrow--you're not sick of it yet, right?).  But this time I used a fat quarter of pink quilting fabric instead of the random crappy pink fabric.  Better results this time for sure!

This quilt is a belated birthday gift for my friend Alexis (shhhh I haven't given it to her yet!)--she was my first Mommy friend after my son was born in 2010.  She's been a great shoulder to cry on, ear to rant to, and confidant through all of Mommy-hood's trials and errors.  She's also loaned me her home for the birth of my daughter, arranged vacations, babysat for me more times that I can remember, and helped us move.

So when she said I could give her my Lone Star quilt as her birthday and Christmas present for the next like, ten years, it got me thinking of making her something similar...since I'm not quite ready to part with the full size one.  And I had some scraps from the full sized one that I couldn't part with either...cue the seam ripper.

Carnage, I mean leftovers, from the full sized star quilt.

I chose one of each fabric that was in the best condition, then steamed/starched it the best that I could.  Unfortunately the diamonds were still a bit wonky, which meant the whole star/quilt ended up a bit wonky.

Those ragged points are destined to never match up!

Kona Charcoal border.

Pink!  A do-over, of sorts.

 Have I mentioned I'm on instagram yet?  No?  Oh, okay well I'm quiltsnkids over there (there's a link with my other links at the top of the page)--be prepared to see lots of kid photos...and lots of quilting ones too.  So far I really enjoy it!  Fun way to quickly (assuming my stoopid windows phone app works correctly) share/save little bit of my life.

I used some lofty poly batting I found at the thrift store years ago.  Perfect for wall hangings.

Quilting to help hide the defects, and a few things I didn't get to do on the other quilt.

For the back I used this pretty fabric from a scrap pack I got maybe a year ago.

And then today I got it in my head to just finish it today--I gotta get back to the Starry Night quilt tomorrow, and just wanted this one to be done!

Maybe I should have added alternate hanging corners so it can be hung the other way?  Oh well, that's what thumb tacks are for.

I totally meant to use a different thread color for the quilting on the star (and maybe everything), but forgot to change it...and then it was too late and I liked the effect well enough.   I used Presencio thread in black--usually I would have used my black Superior So Fine, but I'm trying to finish up the spool of Presencio that I got at a LQS a couple of years ago.  I used the same thread top and bottom to avoid tension issues, and because I couldn't think of anything better for the back.

I'm really glad I made this quilt this week, I think it helped to rejuvenate my mojo.

Quilt labels.

Hopefully it is an acceptable consolation gift!  I'm pretty sure she'll like it :-)

Bound with Kona Charcoal

I'm linking up with Quilter in the Closet and TGIFF!