Big Finish: Penny's Stars Quilt

My niece Penny's room got a makeover from a woodland-themed nursery (with a coordinating quilt) to a more bright and cheerful toddler room. And a new room calls for a new quilt, of course. The design of her new twin-sized bed quilt was inspired by this mini quilt I made for her last year. It has these wonky stars on one side and a pixelated heart on the other side.

My sister/Penny's mom requested a larger version of the wonky stars with similar colors. I enlarged the pattern to 5" squares and started gathering print fabrics in colors and patterns similar to the mini quilt. I decided to swap the white background for Kona Pearl Pink for added interest (and a change of pace). The walls in the bedroom are pale pink, so a pink background fabric made sense. The basic pattern is Sparkle Punch by Oh Fransson/Elizabeth Hartman. A tutorial is available here.

Here's where I started, making wonky stars and getting them up on the design wall.

It got too wide for my design wall, so I had to add an extension of batting. Not the most elegant solution.

I had a drawing to reference, but with this sort of design and layout, I find it's easier just to put the pieces up and then move them around as needed to spread out the colors and prints.

The goal was a twin-sized quilt, and even though this came in a little short because I ran out of background fabric, I still had to lay the last row on the floor -- and keep the cat from pouncing on the blocks before I could get them sewn together.

I chose an Art Gallery Fabrics print for the backing and bought all the print yardage available at my local quilt shop, but it turned out to be a little short, so I added some pink to finish it off. If I had to do it again, I would use something with less contrast to finish the back. I was able to use scraps of the print for binding, though.

Due to its size (and my motivation), I sent this one to Pat, a fellow member of the Knoxville Modern Quilt Guild, for longarm quilting. We decided on an edge-to-edge design called Party Streamers - I think it turned out so well and is a good fit for the bright colors and fun pattern.

I gave the quilt to Penny and then tried to get some photos... With a 3-year-old, you get what you get (and what I got was a lot of underwear flashing!). She loves her Penny pillow, though, and was excited about the quilt to go with it. She even recognized some of the fabrics from other things I've made for her. So sweet.