Batik Star Quilt Top with Silk Ribbon is Finished

Its done! The batik star quilt top is finished! After sitting around for years until I thought of using silk ribbon flowers to create the trail between the pieced stars and the hand appliqued rosettes, I am very happy. I am planning on not letting sit around long until it's quilted...this fall I will quilt it!

I'm very happy with the piano key border. I had to add a lot of new batiks because the original ones were mostly finished but I think it looks good. The silk ribbon has helped tie the border batiks and the star/rosettes fabrics together too...the silk ribbon picks up a lot of the brighter colors in the border.
Here are some close-ups of the silk ribbon vine and you can see that the background is a white on white...
I was lucky to find a dark purple silk ribbon that exactly matched one of the original batiks.
Here's part of the border with one original fabric and several new ones...
and here again, there are just two of the originals.
I'm linking to Finished for Friday at Lit and Laundry and Sew and Tell at Amylouwho. Be sure to stop by both and see the wonderful things finished this week.

The silk ribbon on the batik star quilt is completed! and some links!

The silk ribbon is finished! I'm really happy with the way it looks.
One of the things I love how each bud looks different.
I did two stitches for each bud...first a straight stitch and then either a straight stitch or a ribbon stitch. I mainly used 4mm ribbon but some of the buds are done with 7mm. When I used 7mm I'd do one stitch-the blue bud below is one 7mm stitch.
I've decided on a piano key border and I've cut the fabrics already...it's pretty much used up my stash of batiks and I'm really glad. I'm going to try a microtex needle and see if the sewing goes more smoothly...batiks are so tight!

Andrea at The Train to Crazy is hosting The GREAT De-Stash Challenge...and I'm hesitatingly joining! LOL! Why hesitating...well its easy for me to join any scrap challenges but I think I've become a little afraid of some of the fabric in my closet...I've had them so long and loved them so well-do I have the courage to cut them up? What if I use them and then I see the perfect quilt to use them in-the quilt I've been saving them for-and they're all gone! I know, I know, how silly can I be--pretty silly I guess.

Beth at Love, Laugh, Quilt is hosting a striped fabric challenge and I'm joining in...I just love striped fabric and while I've used lots of homespun stripes I haven't used many bright and colorful ones and I have this wonderful pink striped fabric so that's it-the basis for my striped challenge. Now how to reconcile these two challenges will be the real challenge!

Kaaren at The Painted Quilt is starting a free Redwork BOM on June 20th. Do you love Raggety Anne and Andy? Find out all about this lovely BOM.

Quilting log cabin and I think I've solved a problem

I started quilting on my black, white and red log cabin. I'm again doing a loopdy loop pattern-I liked doing it on my string quilt-but I'm trying to get rounder circles this time. Its gotten hot here and the air conditionering just doesn't cool my sewing room very well so I'm going to try to get some quilting in early in the morning before it gets too hot. It will be slow going-I quilted in the white on two squares and then ran out of room!Here's the back...its a Nancy Crow fabric that I've had for years-again waiting for just the right quilt. Isn't it perfect?!

Every summer I start to think about hand sewing projects-this project has been bugging me for quite a while but I think I have a solution. The stars are machine pieced and the rosettes are hand applique. After I put the rosettes on I had this brilliant idea-add leaves in a criss-cross pattern. I love how it looked basted...but if you look at the top row-you'll see the problem. It looks awful-UGH- when appliqued. I know the problem is that I should have thought of the leaves earlier! but what to do now. I tried larger leaves, different shape leaves...all to no avail.But I think I've got it solved now. Forget the leaves-what I like is the trail between the rosettes.
I'm thinking silk ribbon! I'm going to add to this feather vine-padded silk ribbon flowers. I think I thought of this because I showed my crazy quilt for the Spring Quilt Festival-I'm going to do something similar to the vines on the fan. Hope this works because this poor top has been sitting around for years! Seriously, I just couldn't think of anything and I just wouldn't give up!