Stars shining bright

It's been a while longer than I thought - blame the sunny weather and a hectic schedule! Picking up where we left off, I believe I promised pictures of my newly planted garden and after a number of false starts and smudgy photos taken too early in the morning, here we are:







There has also been knitting - I finished the knitting part of the Firebirds on Friday


And now I'm onto the embroidery part (which is taking a lot longer than you would think). I've found it best to put the sock on the blocker to get a bit of stretch on the fabric but as my feet are slightly larger than the blocker it's an inexact science. What I can say is that despite all the effort it makes a huge difference, but I'll save the pictures until I have a finished pair!

When not melting in the wonderful warmth this weekend I have been picking up on my Star quilt-along. Amanda-Jean published the last star this week and I realised that I'd run out of steam at star 6. So on Saturday as H headed off for a boys golf game I set up my sewing room.

I have decided that when I'm grown up I'm going to have a house with a wide veranda with power sockets so I can sew on the veranda and also I'm going to have a cutting table at the right height - my desk is officially too low (creak).

Several hours of sewing later (and very early this morning) all the stars were finished and it now looks like this:


As you can see I have another 6 setting squares to sew plus sashing and then the whole quilting issue. I know you'll say 'famous last words' if I claim that I am aiming to sew one quilt at a time but it's true - I've got until Christmas to finish this one at which point we're going on a long distance fabric shopping trip for the next one (and yes I have chosen it already - it's here but that's not a very good picture. I also admit that if we go to the NEC festival of quilts in August I may slip up!)

Anyway, having finished the stars it seems only proper to allow them to parade. So, in week order we have:

Week1 - I don't know what this star's called but it's pretty

Week 2 - again no name
(well there should be a picture here but it seems I forgot to take one. Imagine one for me please :))
Week 3 - the Ohio Star - I'm guessing that's a big clue as to where that block originated!

Week 4 - Sarah's Choice - who was Sarah and what did she choose?

Week 5 - Another no-name but I'm going to call it nightmare - this is the one that had a do-over because the first effort was so atrocious.

Week 6 - Aunt Addie's - another mysterious name, I'm going to have to get a book on quilt history to find out where the names come from.

Week 7 - Star of Hope a variation on the Ohio Star and the first of yesterday's marathon effort

Week 8 - the Maple Star

Week 9 - Optical Sawtooth

Week 10 - Martha Washington Star - named for the first First Lady of the USA, although wikipedia fails to mention whether she invented it herself. I love the pinwheel in the middle and this is probably one of my favourites.

Week 11 - the Amish Star

Week 12 - the Indian Star

and finally


Week 13 - appropriately named Right Hand of Friendship

I've really enjoyed this quilt-along and I think my technique has been steadily improving. The blocks aren't all the same size but I'll play with the sashing until it's all right and we'll take it from there!

Twinkle twinkle and goodnight