Broken Dishes, Hidden Stars

Not an awful lot accomplished in the past two weeks, but I did manage to put together the scrap Broken Dishes blocks mentioned in my last post.

The blocks are quite small, just 4" unfinished, from 'bonus' HSTs, the offcuts from a Spools quilt I started in a class with Carolyn Forster in 2011 (and finished in 2013...).  

I was lazy in those days and did not trim my HSTs, so there was a fair amount of fudging involved in putting them together: special mention and thanks must go to my bottle of pressing spray and tank steam iron.  If you spot any missing points... tough: I am just delighted the blocks went together at all!

I saw the layout in Moda Bakeshop recently (Lovely Lattices) and loved the hidden stars, coloured or neutral, which appear and disappear, depending how you squint at the blocks.  

As there are millions of seams, despite pressing to distribute bulk wherever possible, I decided not to risk quilting in the ditch which would have taken the stitch line right through the centre of the lumpiest parts.  Instead I quilted 1/4" or so either side of the seam lines, which actually adds a rather nice and more interesting texture, I think.

The quilting extends out into the borders (which saves a lot of tying in of ends, so always desirable!).

Borders are the width they are (3") because that's all the fabric I had left; binding is from scraps (ditto), cut 2" wide because a small quilt doesn't really want a big fat binding.






Backing is pieced as well, and I joined two bits of wadding with fusible tape, so this really is made all from scraps - my favourite kind of quilt.  Just 36" square, 81 blocks set 9 x 9, it's a whole lot nicer than a bag of bits at the back of the cupboard .  However, I still have an awful lot more bags squirrelled away so I shouldn't get complacent....

Here for comparison are some pictures of the Spools quilt which was the start of it all:

Which do you prefer?  I'm favouring my 'newborn' at the moment.

Do you find yourself making quilts in pairs, to use up what's left from the first project, or is it only me who always buys far more than I need?

I'm linking to Amanda Jean at Crazy Mom Quilts today.