Finally, a Finish

I was beginning to think I would never finish this SuperStar quilt!!! 

 I  really think little quilt gremlins worked in the middle of the night piecing stars and adding to the size of this quilt, because it seemed the more I quilted, the more remained to be quilted ;-)

If you are a regular reader of my blog, you'll know that I went back and forth on whether to quilt this one myself or to do my usual ship it off to the longarmer.  

I really, really wanted to do the quilting on my son's quilt myself, but I also really, really didn't want to mess it up!  I knew with all that negative space, the "mess ups" would be highly visible.  However, I took a deep breath and set about quilting.  (More about that here and here.)

Hours before packing up the car and taking our son to college, I was still auditioning binding strips.

Nothing like waiting until the last minute!   

For the binding, I went with strips of garnet and strips of gold (FSU colors) for that semi-scrappy look ;-)

Pieced backing...before basting and quilting

The hand stitching of the binding took place while on our headed-to-college road trip!  Thanks to my husband who prefers to do the driving, my newly-purchased handy-dandy headlamp (for stitching at night), and a layover along the way to visit oldest son (providing a chance to visit with him and nice break for my sore fingers) the binding was sewn in place just as we exited I-10 in Tallahassee with plenty of time to spare!

SuperStar quilt and son are now comfortably settled in the dorm! 

While the roommate was out of the room, we did a quick, mini photo shoot of the quilt, my son with his quilt, his dorm room, etc.  I promised none of the pictures would appear on Facebook...however, nothing was said about pictures on my blog ;-)

Eric was really cute with his quilt (I won't share the picture of him in his FSU PJ's)...insisting that the quilt looked more "legit" with it tucked in (even though some of the stars are hidden that way)....worrying that it would get dirty during the photo shoot....and basically making me feel very proud that he didn't seem embarrassed moving in with a quilt his mom made! 

As I mentioned before, I quilted swirls inside the star centers with variegated thread, and used cream thread for FMQ loops and various sized stars throughout the huge areas of negative space.  One reason the quilting took forever (besides the fact that I'm still a newbie when it comes to FMQ) is that it is pretty densely quilted.

I love the way the quilting looks on the front, and it really does blend those different shades of neutral fabrics like I hoped (even though it doesn't look like it in pictures).

The backing, however, is another story.  Every stitch is seen clearly on the back which makes me nervous ;-)  I do like the way the free motion stars show up better on the back though.  

If you recall, I pieced the label into the backing by using a leftover star.  My daughter suggested adding the "Go 'Noles!" part which I believe is a nice touch!  So not to distract from the wording, I just quilted a large star in that area of the label.

I have to say I love how this quilt turned out!  It has become one of my favorites!  

As so many of you predicted, I am happy that I decided to quilt this one myself!  I still have a lot to learn and there are plenty of oops, but overall I think I did a pretty good job...how's that for modesty!

I'll leave you with one last picture taken in front of the dorm.
 The outside of the dorm looks exactly the same as when I lived here as a freshman, but luckily for Eric, the inside has been gutted, remodeled and improved.  "Back in the day" this was an all-girls dorm with no air conditioning...now it is a co-ed Honors dorm with modern conveniences such as internet...not to mention air conditioning!

Saying good-bye and letting go (of my son...not the quilt...haha) was more difficult than I imagined.  As I was hand stitching the binding on the trip, I realized this was a big factor in my putting this quilt off until the very end....I wasn't ready for my son to go away to college....sigh

Good thing I have plenty of quilting projects to keep me busy!

Have an amazing weekend!!!