Another September Surprise: Star Shine Prism Break

I thought I would do a quick and hopefully short Post about Star Shine Prism Break, my third and last finish for September. I will be posting my second finish later, which is the first surprise, since I need to take a photo of the quilt at the GP House which we will be there in a few days.

Sandra, MMM Quilts, gifted me her latest pattern, Orinoco Flow as a thank-you but truthfully she gave me another heart attack moment. While I was on vacation several weeks ago at Yosemite, I received an email from Sandra with pattern corrections. My initial reaction was a “Whoops, I did it again” and forgot to do a pattern test but it turned out that Sandra forgot to send me the pattern after I meekly asked her if this email was sent to me in error. This pattern comes in two sizes, cushion and throw and I added a third size, Wall or Table Topper.

It wasn’t until September 26th when we returned home from vacation and then a three day stay at the GP House that I finally had some time to work on some projects. After I finished my second quilt on the 27th, I realized that I had time to make Star Shine Prism Break. I just love this pattern and the best part is that it only took around eight hours to make this lovely wallhanging. I initially was going to use some new fabrics purchased while on vacation but once back home and in the studio, I found these four fabrics in my stash. I think this was the quickest pull for just four fabrics. The multi-color print, second from the top, is from Hoffman Fabric line, Zookeeper, and is the Prism color way which helped me to finally come up with the quilt’s name. MMMagical Stars II was another name I thought of and can be considered it’s formal name since Sandra always design such wonderful Star quilt patterns.

Once the patches were quickly cut because of their simple measurements and segments made, this quilt was a fast sew. I decided to add a border with the Zookeeper print since I rather have a wall hanging for my door instead of a cushion. Any excuse to use this wonderful print, right?

The Orinoco Flow pattern can be made with a plain background to allow for exquisite quilting which I don’t do but I am happy with the background, an unnamed Andover print just purchased in August to make up for the possible lackluster machine quilting. I am happy with the straight line quilting inspired by Sandra’s quilt. After the diagonal quilting of 1” apart was done, I thought the quadrant quilting would be perfect. I used a CT Essential Thread in Violet.

I think it took more time to hunt for the  perfect piece of purple fabric for the backing and glad I did a little digging to find the Peace print. I was going to bind Star Shine Prism Break with the Zookeeper print but I had just enough of the purple Grunge left which I thought would better accent the quilt. Of course, when a small quilting is made, I have to hand sew the binding down.

One last photo with the Master Quilt Holder skillfully holding the quilt behind the front porch post. His leg is almost camouflaged by the plant. He won’t be needed for the second quilt photos, but the darling Granddaughter will be and hopefully she’s learned from the best.

Linking up with:My Quilt Infatuation/NTT

A Sweet Start to September-Scrapffiti

I’m having a good start to the month with my first quilt finish for September, Scrapffiti, which happened to be a DrEAMi. I found a few new inspirations while taking a scroll in social media lane during the past few weeks and I am happy to share in this Post.

The Scrapbooking pattern appeared on my IG feed and I fell in love with it immediately. I just love simple patterns with large patches which are perfect for the large focus prints in my stash. I purchased the pattern as a download on August 21st, (spent a few days auditioning fabrics and five days at the GP House) and eleven days later it is a Finally Finish. I named it Scrapffiti, a play on the pattern name and Graffiti since that came to mind with the use of the black and white Splatter print.

I first auditioned Tula Pink fabrics but didn’t have the right blender and accent prints and then Ravel by e bond which I would have used but the colors were not strong enough against the black and white Splatter print. I decided to use the lovely group of fabrics above which had the right saturated colors and have been quietly residing together in the same bin for several years. All of these prints were designed by a lovely group of ladies and am listing them in alphabetical order by first names: Karen Gillis Taylor, Keiko Goke, Kitty Yoshida, Katie Pasquini Masopast and Libs Elliot. Some of the fabrics shown were eliminated and more Libs Elliott fabrics were added. After pairing them, I had a group of ten combinations (some prints were used twice) to make the blocks.

I love all of the combinations but have to mention that I was very happy to use once again the citronickle Dance Moves print by Katie Pasquini Masopast which I used for my Kharma Khameleon Baby Boomer Blankie. I used this print in two of the combinations.

….and here are the other nine. The blocks sewed fast but laying them out was more of a challenge which I changed the layout at least ten times before I was satisfied that the colors and prints were spread out nice and even.

Vertical, soft wavey lines were machine quilted with CT Essential Threads with a variegated Gray for the top and Silver on the bottom. I had planned to use a wide back from the vault but remembered that I had a stash of the IKEA black and white leaf print designed by Paulin Machado in 2013. I had planned to use a marble black print for the binding but was inspired to used the Splatter background print which I will explain later. Scrapffiti measures 64” by 80”. The Scrapbooking pattern was a fun and quick make but you do have to pay attention to sewing the patches together in the correct orientation. I hoping to make another one with the right fabrics and background.

Am I the last person in the world to be introduced to Kate Jackson/The Last Homely House YouTube channel? I don’t know which feed I found her in, either Pinterest or YouTube, and am wondering why it took seven years for the algorithm to decide that I might be interested in her, especially Pinterest, since I have numerous quilting boards, a Kaffe Fassett board and a British board. I ignored her on Pinterest first but finally noticed her when the mention of a Lime Green Sofa came up and you know it’s my favorite color which I call Citronickle. It’s in one of Kate’s videos where she was making a top with optical illusion blocks and said that she planned on binding the quilt with the same sashing fabric and thought that was a great idea that I could use for my Scrapffiti quilt. I normally like my binding to frame my quilts and never would thought of using a background print but the Splatter print really makes the blocks looking like they’re floating. I should mention that I have already pulled out a Kaffe Fassett scrap project which has been in the makings for over five years. According to Kate, five years is a reasonable time to finish a project. It’s a nice change of pace for me to listen/watch Kate while in the studio; I love listening to anyone with an English accent.

I mentioned in my last Post that I found a wonderful road project for our upcoming road trip which was the Quilt As You Go Rectangle Bricks, tutorial by Stitch with Rachel.

My first collection of Tilda fabrics was purchased, thanks to good quilt friend Carol who was mentioning lately that she was making quilts with Tilda fabrics which I had forgotten I gifted her first Tilda fabrics several years ago, the special templates to make the bricks received and thin batting and backing found in the stash. It’s a good thing I made some test blocks because I realized that it’s too fussy to sew these in the car and I rather make a different type of quilt with the lovely Tilda fabrics. These blocks are a nice hand project for  when I’m at home and have an idea to use them individually rather than in a quilt which means I don’t have to worry if the blocks are sewn accurately and are all the exact size. I have to come up with another road project and may take leftover paper pieces from my Smitten quilt since I had a lot of leftover. I am bringing plenty of knitting with me so I should have enough to keep my hands busy.

I’m closing this Post now with some exterior photos of  Scrapffiti and one of I wish there was a graffiti wall by my house so PicMonkey helped to make this possible. It was a little bit windy but the Master Quilt Holder handled the quilt with his usual finesse. Hope everyone is enjoying the last holiday weekend of the Summer.

Linking up with:My Quilt Infatuation/NTT