Project Quilting: Challenge One

As I was hopping around different blogs the other day I came across something called Project Quilting. Since school doesn't start again for me till next week I decided to jump in the challenge.

This is season 5 of Project Quilting and this week was the first challenge of the season.

The theme this week is "String Along with Me". 

There were only a few rules that had to be followed:

1. The entire quilt (except the back) had to be made of strings - fabric strips 

no larger than 2.5 inches.

2. The quilt had to be started and finished during this week.

3. The quilt didn't have to be traditional but must have at least one of these three elements:

A: include patchwork

B: include applique

C: have three layers stitched together.

(When I first read these three items I didn't see the "at least one" so I ended up doing all three.)

At first I had visions of making a cool landscape quilt like this one, but I knew that wouldn't be possible to do in one week.  After perusing all the string quilts on Pinterest and Google images, I found this Exlpoding Star Tutorial.  I Instantly fell in love and knew I had  to make a quilt using that Star. 

I made 6 star blocks and fiddled with different layout designs till I came up with this one.
I measures approximately 40 x 56 inches.

When I was putting the Blue string blocks together it made me think of the Ocean. 

But I couldn't figure out how stars could fit into an ocean theme. Finally it hit me. Starfish. So I named the quilt "Relaxing Starfish"   The Rainbow stars are the starfish resting on coral, surrounded by the Ocean.

   I had been at a loss as to what to applique on the quilt,  but once I figured out the name of the quilt I knew what I was going to applique.  I punched out some green Starfish and placed them on the blue string blocks and machine stitched then down.  It is lightly quilted, just in the ditch, but if I come up with something clever I may go back and add more quilting to the blue string blocks.

From start to finish, this quilt was fun to put together. Even when it got to be the wee hours of the morning.  I do believe it is in the top ten of my all time favorite quilts that I have made.

All projects had to be posted by noon today CDT.

Go check out all the other entries  HERE.

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