Starburst - Baby Quilt Flimsy

I finished this flimsy back in June. Yeah, June. I told you I have been sewing. . . ;) This is a two birds, one stone kind of quilt. Back in June I set up a day of quilting with Gina Perkes at her new shop in Payson, AZ. You know I am a total Gina fan girl. She sells Innova long arms. You know I have been tossing around the idea of buying a long arm. . . So I scheduled a day to finally make the decision. My niece was having a baby and said baby was due the end of August. This is the two birds (purposes), one stone (or quilt) comes into play. I decided to make a baby quilt to quilt on while I was quilting with Gina. Crazy? Yeah, probably so, but I've never been quite normal, right? Here's the finished flimsy!

I'm going to walk you through the process of making this flimsy. I found a bunch of patterns and put them together. Here's how four different patterns from four different blogs came together in what I think is a pretty cool quilt. Yes, lots of negative space. I did that so I'd have room to practice! I'll tell you about my day with Gina at The Copper Needle at the end of the post. Links to the patterns/tutorials will be in the picture captions. I'm going to let the pictures tell the story :)

These were easy and fun to make! I don't even remember how I found the tutorial but when I did, I knew I was going to use them in the quilt! :) It's called Migrating Geese.

LOOK at those points!! Not ONE pin used in the making of these flying geese! Did I mentioned there was a video link in the blog post linked in the above picture?? Yeah, check.it.out!

You can find the instructions for this star block here. This was the last block that I found and I was kind of wishing it were the first. . . because I totally would have made four of these to make a quilt top. There is a picture in the tutorial. SO COOL!! Yes, it's on "the" list!! LOL

Trinity Star Block, McCalls Quilting. This block finishes at 16" x 16". Tedious. Worth it! :)

Star Cluster, Judy Martin. Wins the prize for tedious! But also very worth it! I would NOT want to make an entire quilt of these. . . although it would make a pretty awesome quilt! LOL

Here are the various different layouts I played with before finally deciding on the one at the top:

Seemed a little too weighted down on the left side. . .

I wasn't sure why I was not 100% pleased with this one, but I wasn't. I really did/do like that star block on point though!!

A reminder of the finished flimsy :)

OK, so that is the story of the making of Starburst. Oh, so you want to know how my day with Gina went? ;) In one word, fantastic! I've obviously had some time to process the adventure and here are my takeaways from the day:

1. I am confident that with time (and not as much as I thought), I could get as good on a long arm as I am on my domestic.
2. I have tried several brands. If I buy, I will buy an Innova. I quilted ALL day and only had two thread breaks. Both times they were caused by operator error, like forgetting to reset the stitch speed when going from micro quilting to quilting larger motifs. Stitch quality is freaking awesome. NO tension issues. I could go on, but in the interest of getting this posted at some point this week ;) I'll stop.
3. My husband has a way of planting me squarely back into reality. :) When I got home, I was flying high. I was ready to order. I gave 'the number' to my reality check. . . I got the look. You know the look. The "Are you @#%#@ crazy??" look. . . Hmmm, I didn't think I was crazy ;)

Bottom line, there's lots of craziness happening here and the bottom line is that making this purchase now is just not a wise move. So no, I will not be purchasing a long arm. . . yet! ;)

Oh, and as for the baby? His name is Benjamin and all 9 lbs 1.2 ozs of his incredibly precious self is here and he is happy and healthy. I just finished quilting his name in the quilt. The final step in quilting it. So yes, this quilt is finished and will be mailed on Tuesday. But you can see the quilt quilted soon. I'm going to try to keep this roll going! I have another finished quilt and cushion cover to show you. It.will.happen!

Linking up with DWM and MCM. Until next time, keep on quilting!!