Starbright Quilt... finished!

Can y'all come over and visit today?  It's so. incredibly. gorgeous. outside, you might faint straight away.  Seriously, the sun is shining, the birds are singing and there are flowers everywhere!  Someone said yesterday that I have a terminal case of spring fever.  Yep, I do!  Here's why....

Ta da.... my Starbright Quilt!  Last night, Brandon and I ran outside to take these shots in our front yard.

This quilt, entirely machine pieced and mostly from scraps, pretty well sums up how I'm feeling. 

Laaaaaa!

Every year, I so anticipate the moment when our dogwood trees bloom.  They opened this weekend, so I've been drinking them up blossom by blossom. 

We are incredibly blessed in South Carolina that dogwood trees grow wild.  These petite trees flourish in the understory of the tall pines and oak trees.  Our house, which was built in the 60's, has two gigantic dogwood trees in the front yard and maybe 10 or so surrounding our house in all.  Sometimes I wonder if these two in the front are the largest dogwood trees ever?  They must be SO old.

The back of my Starbright Quilt is a patchwork of large cuts, pulled from my stash and improv-ed together this way and that.  Loving that large cut of Loulouthi Summer Totem and this opportunity to use my Flea Market Fancy gray posies!

This was my first time quilting with the Juki TL2010Q.  Oh my gosh that thing is FAST!  I used the walking foot which comes with the machine, and was totally impressed.  That walking foot feeds the quilt more evenly than Pfaff's even feed system by far!  I'm usually very careful to alternate the direction of travel when quilting parallel straight lines.  With this machine I had zero quilt drag when alternating direction of travel and just a tiny bit when I didn't.  Happiness!  Don't you love the finished texture?  I didn't mark these lines, so they're "organic straight lines".  Very enjoyable to make!

Laid it out this morning to get a better shot of the back... wouldn't you know Susan found a spot straight off.

She's bound in Chicopee Circle Cross, a nice low-volume print that seemed to fit the vibe of the patchwork stars.  Most of the neutral background is made up of Robert Kaufman Essex in natural.  I love how crisp the Essex is to work with.  Working with diamonds and triangles can be tricky, so that extra bit of "oomph" really helps.

All rolled up and soon to find a spot on my someday-aqua shelf.

Hey, look!  Those jars need crochet cozies.  Noted.

Thanks for your support on yesterday's decorating brain dump.  You all sound game to follow this crafty detour.  Awesome!  The only idea that got some push-back was the yellow piano.  Really?  Ok, but have you seen one?  You've gotta see one.  I think I'm going to LOVE it!