Do you remember my post indicating a “Star was Born”?

I started working on this quilt as a free Block of the Month (BOM) offered by Craftsy.  I even chose to work from a kit, since Craftsy had a great deal on it.   After finishing the quilt (mostly to schedule), I decided to use it for longarm pattern layout “practice”.

The Night Stars quilt is a pattern by Kimberly Einmo.  The top is constructed with batiks from Anthology Fabric, and a black background with a mix of blues.  I liked the pattern as it gave me an opportunity to practice making a center medallion layout, which I had never tried before.  This is also the first quilt I have made with a black background and batting.

The quilting layout is custom, and used 4 different quilt pattern designers.
– Curls and Pearls (Found at Wasatch Quilting)
– Marilyns Lone Star set (Found at The Quilter’s Quilter
– Partial Pearl String (A carry over from a double wedding ring design)
– Enchanted Feathers – Susan Mallett (Found at Intelligent Quilting)

I used patterns from all four of these design sources to create the quilt fills. The layout of the quilting is my own. I never imagined what the result would be.  The top is colorful, and uniquely filled, but the result of the fills on the black batik back is stunning, and essentially made my quilt two-sided.  Friends have said it has both Indian, and Spanish tone.  I quilted it using my Handi-Quilter Avante machine, and Pro-Stitch.

I decided to follow what Kimberly Einmo suggested in her class regarding teal and yellow threads.  However, I chose a variagated thread for the star fills.  I am very glad that I did!

The back is my favorite part! What do you think?

As needed, I mirrored or rotated fills to give the patterns good flow.  It resulted in framing of the stars with flowers and feathers!  The center medallion,fill found at an Australian source: The Quilter’s Quilter, is my favorite part.

I decided to enter the quilt for consideration in two shows;

• Home Machine Quilting & Sewing Show – Salt Lake City, UT / May 5 – 7, 2016
• Quilt Odyssey – Hershey, PA / July 21 – 24, 2016

This is my first try at entering a show, and have been waffling back and forth between feeling like my quilt is “good enough” to enter for consideration or not.   I’m sure I will get some good feedback if they accept it for the shows, and doubt I would ever have trouble finding a home for this dark beauty!