Hunter's Star

As a reward for not buying any fabric in May (a goal I have completely missed in both June and July), I bought myself a Hunter's Star ruler. I decided to give it a try with some scraps on a small scale, before committing to a larger project. The top went together like a dream - the directions were very clear and easy to follow. I used up the last bits of the orange and purple prints to make the border. I love this Katmandu fabric by Mark Lipinski (which is, sadly, now out of print, but I'm still hoarding a few yards of some of the prints).

Feeling confident from my five months of tutorials and practice through the Free-Motion Challenge, I did three different patterns of free-motion quilting on this little gem. The "McTavishing" in the green doesn't show very well in photos or, to my relief, very clearly in person. It's not a bad first attempt at this design, but it was tricky going around all the orange stars. The straight river lines in the purple look a lot better.

On the stars, though, I used my recently acquired feathering skills. These stars are only about four inches point-to-point, so there is a LOT of thread in these little sparklers! I'm adding this photo at a little larger size, even though I think it's going to bleed into the sidebars, because it's really clear and I'm super psyched about how it looks!