Grrr, quilting

The fuse on my short temper has disappeared completely with pregnancy. I'm really pissed off about a parking ticket that the campus police won't repeal, but they were nice enough to repeal my husbands parking ticket, which he got for the same reason as me. Grrr.

I am off the knitting kick for a little while and back into a sewing kick, particularly a quilt top that I started when my little girl was only a few months old. It's a lone star with applique flowers and vines around the edge. I had to rip out most of the applique I did because, well it sucked. Now after a little more brainstorming and research I started working on the applique again. I just might finish it in twenty years.

This all got started off with a kick to make place mats for me. I have an iris fetish when it comes to my kitchen and dining area. Every thing is violet, blue and green, iris colors. So, I got on the quilting software and came up with this....

Pretty.... of course, I should probably work on some of my UFO quilts before starting new projects. That and I really can't afford the quilt shop right now and I don't have any batiks in my stash that quite match the colors I want.

I also have been working on and off on machine quilting this Star Sampler quilt for my mom....

Almost every block is a variation of the Evening Star, but I did eventually run out of ways to vary this pattern, so I had to throw some other star patterns in.

It was hand pieced and I originally planned on hand quilting the whole thing, but I would also like her to have it before she dies. (Not that she is going to, but it would take me fifty years to hand quilt this cause I'm so slow)

Instead I decided to ruin it with my questionable free hand machine quilting skill. I only have about 6 blocks plus the sashing and the border to quilt though and then I'm ready to bind and be done with this thing. I doubt I will have the ambition or the time but I could be done by Christmas. I still am not sure what quilting pattern to do on the sashing and the border which are only 2 inches wide. This quilt is truly a sampler though and the quilting patterns, although mostly feather based motifs with a stippled background, but I think the sashing is too narrow for a decent feather motif. Oh the challenges of being creative.