The top is completed - happy dancing

I just finished the top of Sophie's Stars. I told myself not to post another picture until the quilt was all done, but now that I'm this far I can't resist. It's been a bit of a struggle at times, but I love the way this turned out. I hope to get it quilted, bound and labeled tomorrow or the next day.

Before I forget I need to give credit to the original designer of this quilt. Jan Rader of Kent Ohio designed it, and it was a winner in the Quiltmaker magazine quilt contest. It was printed in the Early Spring 1991 issue. The original quilt is done with a sand color for the stars, orchid where I put the green and a navy for the dark. It is 95" square. So how did this come to be the baby quilt? I can't remember if I told this story or not, so if you've read this before please forgive me.

I tore baby quilt patterns out of all my magazines for years, and also bought baby quilt books, in anticipation of eventually having grandchildren. When we learned they were expecting I asked them to choose a quilt. First they wanted to wait until they knew whether it was a boy or a girl. Then they took awhile choosing. They decided around last Thanksgiving. When they showed me which one they choose I was dumbfounded. This one wasn't supposed to be one of the choices! The picture of the quilt was on the back side of one of the pages of a baby pattern I'd saved. All I had was the picture, block and quilt size, plus yardage and cutting requirements for a 95" square quilt. No directions at all! They knew that, but figured I wouldn't have included it if it wasn't supposed to be one of the choices. I told them no problem - as long as I had a picture I'd be OK. (Thank goodness this was a based on a traditional block I've made many times!) So I decided to shrink it down to 60%, making 6" blocks instead of 10" blocks. I had to guess at the yardage when I bought the borders and white, as I didn't want to run out. I have leftovers, which I'll use to piece the back so I can put as little as possible into my stash.

For those of you who think my sewing room is always neat, I snapped this picture. The cutting table is now a disaster - at least by my standards. Somewhere buried under there are the appliqué pieces for the two blocks of Heirloom Stitches that are cut out. I have lots and lots of purple triangles - I cut way too many - so I'll need to get those into a scrap box. They are an oddball size, so I think I'll sew them into half square triangle squares and trim them to an appropriate size for the scrap boxes. I have a few extra flying geese units too - those can go in the crumb box to be stitched into crumb blocks. Other various scraps are there also, which need to be cut and sorted. I refuse to add anything to my two huge boxes crammed with uncut and sorted scraps!

I've added a picture I took of Chelsea at the shower yesterday just for fun. Now I need to get into the shower - I'm still in my pajamas! I was a woman on a mission today, and I wasn't going to stop until I completed it.

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Gratitudes:
1. A finished top
2. Leftover teriyaki chicken for lunch
3. Another Monday off work!
4. Papa Murphy's pizza for dinner
5. A refreshing warm shower with good smelly shower gel

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