Happy Christmas Eve!

Happy Christmas Eve!  What an exciting and fun-filled year we have had.  I did plenty of quilting and sewing, read a couple of books, and did some traveling.  This second "Radiance" quilt is the last quilt I have completed this year.   

Since I needed to get it in the mail, I photographed it pinned to my design wall.  The shadows are from my cabinet (on the left) and my glass windchimes (above).  I am pleased with how it turned out.  I used a fat-quarter bundle for most of the central fabrics in the star.  It is composed of squares, half-square triangles, and flying geese.

I made a quilt for the kitties and included it when I mailed the big one to my cousin.  This is Mochi, who is a quilt hog, I am told.  She claimed the kitty quilt immediately, and Betsy doesn't get to share it.  I will be making a kitty quilt for Betsy in the coming months, so she can have her own.

Have a very Merry Christmas!

Radiance Star Quilt Completed

You may remember that I posted about this quilt on September 3 and 5.  It was finished in October, but I was unable to photograph it until this week.  I found the perfect barn, in Canyon County, to use as a back-drop (actually hold it up while I take the photo).

I have made another Radiance Star quilt, which is at my long-arm quilter's for quilting.  It will have the same swirling pattern on it as the one pictured here.  I took a photo of the quilt top while it hung on my design wall.  Radiance II is for my cousin, who likes jewel-tone fabrics.  I used a fat-quarter bundle and three pieces of yardage to make her quilt top, below:

Radiance I is completed and laying on my table, as I took a photo of Radiance II on my design wall.  It makes for a nice reflection.  Don't mind the crap stacked on the hat tree to the right.

Typically, I don't buy patterns to make quilts, and typically, I don't make two of the same.  The bonus of using this pattern is it has instructions on how to make four identical flying geese blocks without wasting any fabric.  It rather blew my mind, when I first did that process.  Now I have a new skill in my set.  The one on the wall does not have the outer border on it yet.  I added tulip corner treatments to it in the aqua color that is in the center star.  The background fabric has dragon flies on it.  I am excited that it will be completed pretty soon.

Finishing Up My Radiance Star Quilt Top

I modified the borders on this quilt, from the pattern.  I put corner tulips on the outer border to cause the eye to bounce back to the central pattern on the quilt top.  I cut some extra 6 inch square blocks and made them into 5.5 inch half-square triangles and some 5.5 inch square corner blocks.

Adding these corners to my border, reduced the number of 5.5 inch WOF border pieces by two.  That is hard to believe, so I believe the instructions had me cut at least one too many.  

This is my completed quilt top.  Now, I need to make the back, which can frequently be a point of procrastination for me.  I am determined to not hold up getting this one competed, so tomorrow I work on the backing.