Flower Pot Blog Hop – Accidental Stars

I am so pleased to show you the quilt, “Accidental Stars” that I made for Jennifer Fulton’s new fabric line, Flower Pot for Island Batik! The fabrics are gorgeous and I love what I chose.

These fabrics are just so luscious. I sorted them into the different prints: the top 3 seed prints, the 3 floral prints (one in a smaller scale) and the 2 vine-y prints.

Designing the Quilt

I was in a bit of a time crunch, but I got right to it on the computer and designed a few quilts.

I tried these two, based on prior designs I made. I liked the flower basket, but somehow it wasn’t what I wanted do. I thought about a square in a square and tried that. I think I wanted one that might make a nice pattern that people would want.

I made a few tweaks and this is the quilt that I designed and made. At first, all the blocks were square in a square, but I found that by “erasing” the outside triangles in the gold border blocks, I emphasized the inner blocks a bit more. I really wanted to highlight the flowers in the the center squares. The fact that they became stars is not a surprise, but it was not my initial intention. Here’s the thing, you get a lot of bang for your buck with the easy piecing…I was sold.

Piecing the Quilt

I knew there would be a bit of a time crunch, so I made the design to use my 8″ accuquilt dies. It made the piecing go quickly. Here you see some chain piecing for the 17 square in a square with the sunflower and purple vines pattern. This makes up the stars.

Next up was the square in a square with the multi-colored sunflowers and teal outer triangles. There were only 6 of those.

The border square in a square unit had 6 with double points and 4 with single points. If you look closely you will see where I had to mark the correct placement of the die cut triangles. It wasn’t hard once I figured that out! There are also 2 sneaky blocks in the center of the quilt, the teal sunflowers with the gold that I almost forgot to make!

In my Tips and Tutorials post, I talked about matching the points, and I did this as I webbed the quilt. You can see the first two columns webbed, and the whole quilt webbed on the pressing station. I an pressing the top two rows. I press each as I go along; it really helps.

One of the things that is really fun, is that you do see things in the real quilt, that you didn’t in the flat pattern. I love the interplay of the pink border, but I love some of the transparency you get with the purples and teals and blues and the oranges and yellows. One of the other happy accidents in this quilt.

Quilting the Quilt

I wanted a curvy pantograph. I thought about something blustery, but in the end, I liked this one. It comes with Prostitcher, called Suzys Loops by Sweet Dream Studios. It comes as a 3″ high design; I made it 5″. It worked like a charm.

I used a Superior So Fine thread, #501, Barely Purple for the top. It really isn’t showy at all and blends so nicely. I love when you get happy accidents, and another is the loop going around the sunflower!

My Simply 16 quilts like a champ, but this was 48″ wide quilt, and it just fits on the frame. I made two rookie mistakes..a split seam and a small back. The split seam meant removing the quilt and taking it to the domestic machine – it is one of the reasons I love a zipper system, It makes it pretty easy to remove and reinstall the quilt. The other is, I “goofed” on thinking about the size of the back and make it 51″ rather than 54″. It was ok, but I had to be careful.

I like these to shots next to each other. You can see that the definition of the quilting, but that it doesn’t over power the quilt. I also love the way the purple-teal leaf print worked as a binding. It has most of the colors so it keeps your eyes looking for those colors in the quilt.

The quilt is 48″ x 64″. I do believe I will write a pattern, and include the accuquilt dies I used. With going away for our anniversary, I didn’t get this done. I may write it for 3 sizes, crib, lap and queen….does that sound like a good idea?

The Flower Pot Blog Tour

Don’t forget to check on the others, here is the list so you can see what they did. It is a really fun parade of quilts and ideas for Jennifer’s fabric collection!

September 23rd – Jennifer @ Inquiring Quilter(Enter to win FQ Pack!)
September 24th – Andi @ True Blue Quilts
September 25th – Jennifer @ Inquiring Quilter (Return & find out another way to win)
September 26th – Lisa @ Lisa’s Quilting Passion
September 27th – See Tiffany’s quilt at Jennifer’s Facebook or Instagram
September 28th – Kathleen @ Kathleen McMusing
September 29th – Emily @ The Darling Dogwood
September 30th – Denise @ Quiltery
October 1st – Jane @ Stitch By Stitch Custom Quilting
October 2nd – Sue @ Larkspur Lane Designs
October 3rd – Laura @ Slice of Pi
October 4th – Brianna @ Sew Cute and Quirky
October 5th – Leah @ Quilted Delights
October 6th – Jennifer @ Inquiring Quilter — (Winner Announced!)

And there is an Instagram Loop that starts the October 7th and ends the 9th. Everyone is giving a little something for that, so watch and have fun. My instagram handles is @kathleenmcmusing. Just follow the loop and play along.

Coming Up on My Blog

Quilt: Yoga 2 & Beer Table Runner
Fat Quarter Shop Project – Previews in Oct/Nov 26th
Beer Challenge (not a drinking game!)
Playtime!

Linking Up With

TGIFF
Finished or Not Friday
Patchwork and Quilts
Favorite Monthly Finish
From Bolt to Beauty
Monday Musings
Free Motion Maveriks
Put Your Foot Down

Fabric Destash

This was about 9.5 yards in and probably about 8 yards out. Almost a wash, but I am up a little bit. I am going to try to play some in October, in between quilting a few projects.
Fabric Purchased September: 9.5 yards
Fabric Used September: 16.5yards
YTD Fabric Purchased: 38.5 yards
YTD Fabric Used: 101.5 yards
Grand total :  -63 yards