The working title is Batik Starburst

The working title is Batik Starburst. This is the quilt made with the binding tool pattern, the one discussed HERE click to read about it later if you like.

I sewed the whole center section before I found out the black fabric was rotten. Since then I have heard many horror stories about black fabric gone bad.

I took the blocks apart, then ripped out the black from the batiks, leaving as much together as possible. When I found stable black fabric and recut each piece (insert curse words here) I began the process of resewing,  like partial seams. It worked but was a bit tedious. I learned something then...

I sewed that part on my Janome Gem travel machine. I finished on my beloved aging Bernina 1630.


The two blocks did not match. I am a stickler for cutting correctly. I am almost a stickler for sewing a good quarter inch seam. But... the two machines were just off by a bit, enough to make a difference. It explains why your friend's blocks aren't always the same as yours. The Bernina's seam is better, so I went back and tried to unpick the poor joins and match better.

This particular one was not having it.

I tried every trick in the book, and after 7 un-sewings of this particular join, I gave in and said, apparently this one, will. not. be. right.

I am not new, I am not without skills, but I ran out of patience! Quilt police, have at it!





Some seams just do not want to match, not with pinning, not with pressing opposite, not with anything.

Anyway I pressed the the blocks well, and trimmed the blocks down to 16 and 3/8 before the final construction began. They are sewn together in three sections at the moment ready to be quilted.
After all the hassle I decided not to border it to make it King sized. It's fine, just the way it is.

Now I want you to do something... Look at the top picture, see the top and bottom center blocks? The blue and green ones? On the first picture the two blue ones are together and the green ones together.

On this picture I mixed them up.
This is the final layout... it just felt better, know what I mean?

All pictures are pre-ironing and pre-trimming of blocks, it looks nice and regular and flat and square on the wall now, but I haven't taken more pics.

What I love...
1.the shading of my scraps from light to dark.
2.The fact that I used scraps not yardage (and the bin is still too full)
3.Color! Brilliant color, glowing color, not organized by rainbow order.
4.I salvaged the quilt when there were times I considered tossing the whole mess away
5.It's a pattern I never would have made but for wanting to do a project with my bee

What I learned
1. Scraps chosen carefully can do a great job in a quilt
2. Black fabric is often more unstable because of the chemicals used to make it
3. Use the same machine to piece the whole quilt if possible
4. It's okay to use a pattern even if one is an art quilter and works originally, ahem.
5. Sometimes good enough is good enough and one moves on

I am now busy figuring out how to best quilt it. I want to try black batting this time, and will quilt the whole center top to bottom sewn together into one 8-block section, the side four blocks as separate sections then join as usual.