Redemption - Sumptuous Stars!!

The Stars are finally shining brightly!!

Introducing:  Sumptuous Stars 80" x 80".  (sorry these are iphone photos)

A behind the scenes view of how I attached it to the railing, ala Home Depot.  No quilt was injured in this photo shoot.

After I pieced the blocks in 2012 I saw this antique quilt in an engagement calendar and bingo!  it was just the right inspiration.  I can not believe how similar they are.

I first posted the finished top late summer of 2012 in NJ.  That was the summer Mr. Fun lost his position in NYC- which is one reason this got shelved.

During the recarpeting of our entire upstairs in spring of 2014, I put this quilt along with lots of other things in a bathtub to get it all up off the floor and out of the way.

NEVER, I repeat NEVER put anything valuable in a bathtub besides people.  Somehow it got a little damp and some color ran.  I spot cleaned it with oxyclean but I had all the markings on it from the  Crayola Markers so I couldn't really soak it.

I decided I had to pin it and get it done.  After pinning about half of the quilt I realized I was short on 2 sides.   Seriously......seriously?   out came those pins and it was re-shelved.....again.

Here is an after shot of that area and it seems to have come out.  Not my finest stop in the machine quilting - oh well the other two look good.

Here are the products I used along with regular detergent.  You MUST use safe all color bleach to remove the washable markers according to Crayola's instructions.

 I used 10 color grabbers.  Norma and discussed it yesterday and we did wonder if it would have all just gone down the drain anyway.  Better safe than sorry.

Here I'll cut away for an action shot of binding.  I hold it this way to stitch - how do you??

Here is my label.  I pinked the edges this time and just sewed it on.  On is good.

So I re-pinned the quilt in early February and started quilting on Friday, February 19th and finished the machine quilting in a week.  The binding took about 3 days to apply and stitch down.

In my last post I forgot to mention that I like to use the Super Slider on my sewing surface.  I keep it on all the time now.   It helps the fabric move along and reduces shoulder fatigue.

This was neat trick I accidentally learned.   If you line up striped bias strips like this~  (note how the stripes are lined up on the edges)

It comes out really great - like this!  I made 328 inches of bias for the edge of this baby.  Easy Peasy.

After trying out several I thought this was an interesting binding fabric choice.  What do you think?  

Here the back where I used this fun Kaffe fabric.  You can definitely see where the seam is on this one but I kind of like the way it looks.

 Argh....this is where I had to add fabric to the side

and bottom

Are you still here? - oh my this getting so long - sorry.  Here is a fun shot from my staircase.  It is really a big quilt.

Here are a few last minute things that I posted on instagram.
Our golf group learned how to curl - always wanted to try it!  Challenging and fun.

I spent Tuesday morning sorting out sweet coco's ear infections.  Poor pup, double ear infection.  Both yeast and bacteria, what an overachiever!

I hope you are having a good week.  I'll be back soon with a Westering Women and Alice Payne update.
xo