I did it! Charm Stars done :)

Hurray!  Charm Stars got done :)  It is hanging at the local fair right now, and I even got brave and entered it into the State Fair in August.  Locally, it won a Reserved Champion ribbon in its category.  I was cutting it close, and didn't get any pictures before I rushed it off to the fair, so today I'll post some pictures of it in process.  It was an exercise in concentration - trying to keep the lattice work of the feathers going in the proper direction.  I used strips of painter's tape with arrows to keep me on track ;)  Here is a picture of them on the thread cabinet -- I would put them on there between rows to keep them ready for the next row, lol!

This is the last row of the quilt in progress, with all those tape strips showing the way.

I was stumped in the small squares that were formed in the basketweave of feathers, but finally found a stencil that I thought looked good.  It had hearts too which was nice because I want this quilt to commemorate DH & my 25th Wedding Anniversary.

I decided to match thread colors to the quilt top - in the end, I used 43 different thread colors.  I even had to call a longarm friend and borrow a burgandy just to match 3 small sections.  Crazy, I know!

Also done is a sweet 9 patch for a customer.  She is in her 80's and still piecing right along.  I needed an idea for the borders that would work in all 4, even though they weren't the same size - horizontal are about an inch narrower than vertical.  So I went with dream feathers - it's what I do best and I'm most flexible with them.  I like to start the center with a heart, it's different and in this case, it went with the traditional, almost folk-art feel of the quilt.  Since there was a heart there, I selected a stencil with hearts and feathers.  The great thing about this is, I was able to use it in the squares and the setting triangles - as well as, the smaller triangles on the outer 4 corners.  It gives the quilt some cohesion and that's always good.

In the small green border I chose Egg & Dart.  Again, it's such a classic design and I thought it looked really nice in this small border.  The 9 patches got Continuous Curves - simple, classic.

The back turned out really nicely too - that was an extra surprise :)

Next up is an embroidered quilt top with tulips on it.  I really like this one, and plan to follow the pre-printed quilt design.  That will be a first for me, and I hope it goes well!