Bloggers Quilt Festival - Galaxy

It's that time of year again when Amy runs her fabulous Bloggers Quilt Festival for those of us who aren't lucky enough to go to Quilt Market. And it's nice to have an excuse to share a couple of my favorite quilts from the last six months ;o)

You probably remember this one, as I over shared it to death while I was making it. I made this quilt over a (slightly insane) five week period in October/November last year. I spent close to 100 hours working on this quilt (mostly quilting it). It was worth every single second though - I am SO happy with how it has finished up! It's just been accepted to hang at Modern Quilt Show Australia too, so I finally have a push to finish burying the threads and get a hanging sleeve on it!

Almost all the star fabrics in this quilt are from various collections by the hugely talented Jenean Morrison. Her fabric designs are just perfect for fussy cutting, and it was lots of fun creating kaleidoscope effects with them. This quilt is vaguely made using Jaybird Quilts Night Sky pattern - although there are only a few Night Sky blocks sprinkled around the quilt. The rest were made using Julie's Sidekick ruler (which is PERFECT for fussy cutting), but simplified so they don't include the outer star points in the Night Sky blocks. I also mucked around with different sized stars - some are bigger and some smaller than Julie's pattern.

Having the stars different sizes was the perfect way to incorporate lots of quilting into the quilt, too. I added 2 1/2" borders to the small and medium sized stars to bring them up to the same size as the biggest ones. The way I pieced it made it very easy to plan my quilting too - and it meant I did very little marking too as I could just use the borders to guide my quilting. I went all out with the quilting on this quilt, and I am delighted with the results. I feel like I'm a lot more relaxed when I'm quilting lately - I don't need to focus on what I'm doing as much anymore, so it is a very meditative thing to do. The only problem is how sore my shoulders get after quilting a quilt this densely ;o)

The back is an amazing print from Parisville by Tula Pink - I had just enough for the back, but not enough to match the print unfortunately. I suspect this one will hang on a wall though, so I'm not too phased (and it's the kind of print that isn't horribly noticeable when it isn't matched). I love, love, love how much the quilting shows up on the back - I used a bobbin thread matched to the top thread, and even though there are lots of different colours in there, they all blend into the print.

I used 100% wool batting in this quilt - and I am completely in love with using it. I've gradually been working my way up in terms of the loft of batting I use as I've become more confident with my quilting, and I love how much texture wool gives to quilting. I don't think I'll go back to lower loft batting now I've tried this stuff.

The stars themselves are quite sparsely quilted - I used the fabric design as a guide for the quilting in most of them, and simply stitched around some of the designs to add a bit of dimension to the stars, but still letting them pop a bit.

 Quilt Stats:

Size - 72" x 75"

Fabric - Lots of Jenean Morrison prints, along with a few Joel Dewberry and Amy Butler prints. Background is Cotton Couture in Soft White. 

Quilting - on my domestic Bernina, using a variety of Aurifil threads (40wt in the background, 50wt in the stars). 

Backing - Damask Dot from Parisville by Tula Pink

Binding - Cotton Couture in Soft White. 

It's really nice to be able to share this quilt again. I'm looking forward to checking out the other entries this time around, too :o) 

xx Jess