Pastel Nightmare OVER! :)

I won't bore you with going into a rant about how much I dislike pastels. If you have been following this blog for any length of time, you already know that and have read previous rants. I also won't indulge in discussing how much this quilt killed my sewing mojo. If you want to read about that, go here. It is done. Completely 100% finished. And I don't have to deal with it any more! 

As usual, pictures first (ummm... a lot of pictures. . . I haven't shown much of this quilt in process. I'll make up for it with a lot of final pictures!).

Quilt Stats: 59" x 71"

Fabric: All Michael Miller fabrics. Solids on the front and prints on the back. Since the quilt was originally designed to be submitted to Quiltcon for the Michael Miller Challenge and was pieced prior to my decision to forgo entering it, I followed the rules. . . how unusual for me! LOL If you want names of any of the specific fabrics, email me or comment, I'll look them up. :)

Thread: Completely pieced and quilted with Aurifil 50 wt thread. I matched the colors in the quilt. The quilting in the negative space was done with all of the colors used in the stars. 

Batting: Quilter's Dream Wool. My go to batting. This quilt is pretty densely quilted - it is not stiff. At.all. Love working with this stuff :)

Piecing: I used Jaybird Quilts Sidekick ruler for the diamonds. I only had to do two Y-seams. This was my first attempt at doing Y-seams it it really was not that bad! It lined up with no puckers on the first try both times!! Not sure why I have been skeered of Y-seams for all of this time! 

Quilting: I had a quilting plan all laid out. . . and even finished it - and then learned that those out there in blog land that had written about too much thread coming together at a point will make a quilt bow, weren't kidding. . . I had to rip it all out! I didn't even take a picture of it. Believe me, it was a mess. So much so that I spent an entire four days of ripping. . . full days. 8 hr days. . . I ended up doing straight line quilting echoing the stars (OK, not exactly straight but pretty close). For the straight line quilting in the negative space and to echo the inside of each of the stars I used my walking foot. The fabric stars were FMQed with different designs in each one. By the time I hit the last one I was struggling with something that would work in what turns out to be some rather odd spaces. As you can see in the green star, I started with one design, decided I did not like it and instead of ripping it out (seriously, after ripping for four days on this thing I was not about to spend one more minute!!), I just started doing something different. . . I see it clearly. Did you notice? :) I'd love to hear what you think! 

What did I learn in making this quilt? Well, first a major positive - I will never pass on a design or decide I can't do a particular quilt because it has Y-seams! It was actually kind of exciting turning it over and holding my breath in anticipation of seeing whether or not it actually worked! LOL It's the little things people! I watched many tutorials on Y-seams. In the end, an oldie but a definitely a goodie was the one I followed. She had me at "we're going to break the rules a little from what you may have seen". . . Kaye Wood break rules?? Sign me up! :D

Another positive - the Sidekick ruler - LOVE it! I also have the Hex 'n More ruler but have not used it yet. . . I think with the two of them, one could make some pretty amazing quilts! Well, we know that, I'm sure you've seen the quilts on Jaybird Quilts blog!

And one more positive - Michael Miller's Cotton Couture fabric is really wonderful! Not as heavy as Kona but I wish you could feel how soft it is! I will be using Cotton Couture fabric again - just not these pastel colors :)

I said it a few posts ago and if you followed the link at the beginning of this post you already have read that I also learned that working with colors that do not inspire me - is a creativity killer for me. I can already feel my mojo coming back in force! I have my next quilt mostly designed and will start cutting today! YAY I'll post more about that in a day or two. 

With the completion of this quilt, I feel like a huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders. I can move on! It is amazing that once I decided I was not going to submit this quilt to Quiltcon, I sat down and just started quilting - whatever came to mind. And I think it works rather well. 

So there you have it. I didn't name the quilt. The recipient's name is Kimber. . . this is Kimber's quilt LOL I know she will love this quilt. Maybe she will take it with her to Kindergarten for nap time and sleep under the stars :)

Linking up with Design Wall Monday, Amy over at 13 Spools for Mistakes and All, Let's Bee Social and Finish it up Friday. Woohoo, two consecutive Fridays with completed quilts! Gotta love that!!