Rising Sun

The last few days have been consumed getting my latest quilt top ready to enter in the Rising Sun Quilt Fest.  I delivered it this morning at 11 a.m. - the last day to deliver completed quilts.  And it was close!  It was a gorgeous drive to Rising Sun, a very picturesque town on the Ohio River.  The redbud trees were in full bloom and added a wonderful touch of color to the woods that are starting to leaf out this time of year.

BIQR Star - finished at last!

 I had completed the quilt top at last September's Beaver Island Quilt Retreat (BIQR) so named the quilt BIQR Star.  I'm not terribly creative in the naming of my quilts, am I?  I struggled for months trying to decide how to quilt it.  I was really thinking about more elaborate quilting on the black around the star but when I was practicing (yes - I practiced before loading the real quilt!), it turned out there wasn't as much space as I pictured in my mind's eye and - probably more to the point - my quilting is not yet good enough to do the smaller feathers in a manner that would be pleasing to the eye.  I debated about using black thread in the black areas or a contrasting thread.  Contrasting thread won out.  But I may try this design again and use black thread next time.  Other suggestions?

My first ever attempt at piping.  Turned out very nicely, if I do say so myself.

This was also the first time I've ever added piping to any quilt.  I used Susan Cleveland's Groovin' Piping Trimming Tool.  I watched one of the free programs on The Quilt Show last weekend and thought I could try this out.  I found the Piping Trimming Tool as well as her booklet Piping Hot Binding that I had purchased last year and it is a terrific tool - well worth the money.  It took quite a long time and this is a rather small wall quilt (47 x 47) so on a larger quilt it would add quite a bit of time.  Of course, the time I spent on this included doing a practice run of adding the piping and binding on my practice quilting piece, too.

I love the effect of piping so perhaps more of my quilts in the future will include this distinctive technique.

Cheers!
Margaret