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Hello First name / friend,

 

Happy Thursday!  I hope you are having a great week!  If you celebrated Thanksgiving, I hope that went well!  We had a nice Thanksgiving here.  All of the kids were home and we made a full Thanksgiving spread.  I have two adult children out of the house right now so it's always nice to have them home.  

 

I ended up sewing quite a bit over the long Thanksgiving weekend.  I like to force breaks on myself but it's hard to do when your hobby is the same as your work.  I also have some things I still need to get done by the end of the year so I can try to take an extended break off around Christmas.  One being the annual heart quilt!  Yes, I'm already thinking about that and hoping to finalize the new design sometime this week or next.  

 

I started (and finished) a new quilt this past week!  It kind of felt, like… oops, I made a new quilt top…lol.  I've been itching to make another Expanding Stars quilt and I've been itching to make one to hand quilt.  So the weekly featured quilt is back this week with Expanding Stars! 

Fabrics are Sprout Wovens + trellis wovens by Fableism.

I knew I wanted to make it out of Fableism wovens and wanted to use what I had on hand.  So I started planning and then next thing I knew I was cutting.  And then I started sewing and was kind of surprised by how quickly it went together.  

 

It's been a while since I've made one but it's pretty fast.  The trickiest part is assembling the quilt top and keeping all of the sections in the right spot.  

 

So yeah, oops, I made a new quilt.  And then I was so excited to start hand quilting it that I forgot to take photos of the completed quilt top.  It's already basted and I started some stitches on it.  

 

I will say, I don't love it..haha.  I used what I had on hand and kind of wish I had taken the time to order some other fabrics.  I think it's that tan ring I don't like.  But I have a plan for it that I think will help. Also… why in the world do I go for the largest possible quilts…lol..  Seriously!  It's a problem.  I should have made the regular throw size but instead made the large throw.  Lots of hand quilting to do… 

I plan to follow the shape of the stars with the quilting but forgot that it's not exactly the same all the way around.  The diagonal part of the star is narrower than the straight parts so I'll first outline and then decide what to do with that difference.  

I've been using Size 8 pearl cotton thread.  I just stocked up on some new blues for Expanding Stars.  Also, I recently switched to these size 3 Tulip needles and really like them with this thread. 

I also finished up this Quilty Trees this past week.  This was a nice stash quilt.  I used greens and low volumes from my stash.  I think I'll quilt this one myself when I get my Janome back.  

I finally brought it in to get fixed!  I'm hopeful it will be ready this week sometime.  My Janome MC6700p broke while quilting one of the Tiled Stars quilts a few weeks ago.  I've had it for 4-5 years and have never had it serviced. (Terrible… I know)  The bobbin case started moving around on me and my needle would hit it and get all bent.  So hopefully it's nothing major and will be back in business soon! 

I also started a new hand stitching project recently!  I was eyeing up some of the Tales of Cloth quilts and Jodi so kindly sent me one of her new kits to try out.  This is the new larger Ice Cream Soda quilt.  

 

My last hand stitching quilt took 7 years so I'm not expecting this to get anywhere too fast. 

I'm finding that if you match your thread to the darker fabric it blends in a little better.

I'm going to try for a scrappy version of this quilt using these three same colors.  I'll probably have to raid my stash and not just my scraps for this one though. 

I also recently sewed up this flannel quilt using my Cozy Season bundle!  Stay tuned for that as it's a brand new one I'll show you in a couple of weeks. 

So yeah, lots of sewing lately!  But that's just the way I like it :)

FEATURED QUILT PATTERN

The weekly featured pattern is back this week with Expanding Stars!  As I already mentioned, I've been itching to make this one again.  It's been a while.  It really is a fun one to sew up.

Expanding Stars comes in lots of sizes.  The star size expands with each size.  It's a pretty quick one to sew up.  I was surprised how quickly my recent one went together. 

I made this solids version a while back for the cover. 

The one above is the original Expanding Stars.  It's made up using one of the OG Cotton and Steel lines called Print Shop.  I believe this one is by Alexia Abegg.  The new Starry fabrics have a similar feel (below)  I've always loved this Print Shop line so it's probably why I also love Starry so much.

Here's a look at a baby size made up using prints. 

Here's a few mock ups to give you some fabric ideas for this one.  

 

These first three were the colors I was playing around with for my Fableism version. 

Here it is in Ruby Star Warp and Weft Honey.

I loved the holiday version Julia of @redbootshandade made and did a similar mock up to give you some ideas to use it for a Christmas-y quilt.

A pretty solid version.  

Here it is in Sarah Watt's new Dog Park line coming out next year with Ruby Star Society.

This one is in the new Sugar Maple line by Alexia for Ruby Star Society.

Here's a monochromatic version in Ruby Star Society Achroma. 

Here's on in the brand new Starry coming out very very soon.

And lastly, another solids version.

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