Bright Sky QAL - Ms Nightshade

A few months ago, Alyce from Blossom Heart Quilts asked me if I would be interested in joining her Bright Sky Quilt Along?  Sure, I said.  No problem, I said.  And really, it wasn't a problem - I just got my skates on and got the quilt top made incredibly fast! Seriously, this is a super quick pattern to put together! But I then had to leave it languish in my pile of WIP's, because, Tokyo.

Anyway - today is my stop on the quilt along!  So I'm going to show you my version of the Bright Sky pattern.  And it's a colour palette I never really envisioned EVER using!

This, my friends, is Ms Nightshade.

 

Isn't she beautiful?  I was lucky enough to score a big bundle of Nightshade fat quarters from Quilt Jane earlier this year.  I know two females in my life who would die over these prints, I just had to wait for the right pattern to use them in.  And given Bright Sky's big scale pattern, I brought Nightshade out to play.  It took a lot of umming and ahhing to convince myself it was going to work!  I mean - olive, pink and black?  And CREAM?!?!!?  I ordered the solids from The Oz Material Girls (their quilting solids really are beautiful to work with!) and was pleased when they arrived and actually co-ordinated well with the prints.

The next step was to make the cameo of this gothic princess work.  Let me tell you - fat quarters and huge scale prints are not ideal!  It almost killed me not using a complete cameo, but I basically had to fussy cut this baby so that it was pretty much centred.  My fat quarter had the top of the cameo cut off - hence why the bottom is too!  The great thing about this pattern however, is that the centre block just had to be 18" square.  Which essentially means you can make that square up however you please.  You would have seen Alyce's latest version, which she made in to a star, well this one is just a frame around the cameo.  Winning.

 

I was VERY impressed with my points on the inner star!  It was relatively easy to put together in terms of the bias I was working with, but I was a tad worried during the process!

What I WASN'T impressed with, was how my outer star points ended up!  Completely my fault, and I am dreading having to unpick to fix the problem.  BUT, I can't really not have star points!  I'm thinking the reason behind this minor issue was that the outer star rectangular blocks were a little bigger than they should have been, so I SHOULD have trimmed them down a little before piecing it all together.  Doh. So that is my next step.

Now, a little dilemma I'm having is BACKING.  I searched high and low whilst in Tokyo for the perfect backing fabric - to no avail.  I even had lovely Alyce's help, but nothing.  If you head over to Blossom Heart Quilts today, she is having a little old giveaway - and all you have to do is suggest what fabric I should use for my backing.  I look forward to getting some options!

And just for laughs......here's an out-take from the photo shoot yesterday......

Was a tad bit windy....

I hope you like my version of the Bright Sky pattern!  You can find the pattern HERE and the full schedule of quilt-alongers is here:

Monday 29th September – Choosing Fabrics Tips

Week 1: Centre Star
Monday 6th October – Have Fun With Your Centre Star!
Wednesday 8th October – Echo by Molli Sparkles

Week 2: Piece Outer Star
Monday 13th October – Outer Star Tips
Wednesday 15th October – My Fabric Relish

Week 3: Piece Quilt Top + Backing
Monday 20th October – BHQ
Wednesday 22nd October – Ms Midge

Week 4: Quilting
Monday 27th October – Pretty Bobbins free motion quilting guest post here at BHQ
Wednesday 29th October – A Stitch In Between (Bright Sky mini)

Week 5: Quilting
Monday 3rd November – Elven Garden Quilts free motion quilting guest post here at BHQ

Week 6: Final Linky
Monday 10th November – Linky opens here at BHQ for a week

Voting:
Monday 17th November – Linky closes and voting opens for Viewers’ Choice award
Friday 21st November – Winners announced!

I'm also linking up with Freshly Pieced!