Christmas Stars - Finished!

Christmas Stars is bound and labeled at last!

I started this quilt in July, 2011, as part of my Christmas in July project, but did not get it quilted and bound until this fall. 

 

Hard to see but the binding is the same red tone-on-tone fabric used for the sashing.  The finished quilt is 66" by 78"; it is being held up by a couple of my helpers here but even then, I had trouble getting a good photo of the entire quilt. 

 

I used a variation of the Ohio Star block for this quilt.  It is not as complicated as it looks.  My tutorial for this block is one of my most popular posts and you can find it here.  I used a variety of red and green fabrics in the star blocks  with a consistent creamy white background and a red tone-on-tone for the sashing and binding. 

 

 

Christmas Stars was quilted by Linda Hrcka of The Quilted Pineapple.  The quilting is absolutely fabulous and makes the quilt very special.  You can see more photos and read about the quilting techniques on Linda's blog post. 

 

I agonized over which fabric to use for the border.  I had originally planned to use a print and auditioned several before deciding that the background fabric repeated in the border would set the star blocks off best.  I'm glad I made that decision because I'm so happy with the way this quilt turned out.  

 

Here is a photo of the border quilted, before I applied the binding.  The quilting has a lot of dimension because Linda used two layers of batting, which made the quilting look almost like trapunto.  As a result, the quilt is heavier than most but that's all for the good because it will be used in the winter.  

 

 

 

I chose Christmas Stars to be my entry in the Bloggers' Quilt Festival.  Go visit Amy then travel on to all the participants.  BQF is always loads of fun and inspiration.

 

 

 

I think Christmas Stars fits best in the Favorite Bed Quilt and Favorite Professionally Quilted Quilt categories.