I.S.T.H. Again

Remember I pinned four quilts a couple weeks ago, all Schnibbles? Well, I finished quilting a second one, I.S.T.H.

I.S.T.H. is one of those patterns I changed a bit. Here's the original pattern cover picture so you can compare:

I made mine using Blueberry Crumb Cake (Blackbird Designs) charms, and I think it will look perfect on my kitchen table around August--after I've grown weary of red, white, and blue but not yet ready for orange, gold, and dark green. The brown shades of wet and dry beach sand and the blue shades of the August sky and the ocean--that's what it reminds me of.

My version is similar to the original but I wanted mine square (I like square quilts best) and so I thought I wouldn't break it up into three columns as in the original, and I also left off the checkerboard borders on the two ends.

Here's the funny thing, though. You know how I'm always talking about my dislike of marking quilts for quilting? I'll do just about anything to avoid it. Well, this time I gave in and marked the quilt for quilting--sometimes you just gotta do it. I used a stencil I had of a five-pointed star with scallops around the star--kind of like flower petals. That all went fine, although it was a bit time consuming for my taste, but then when I got to the border, I was stumped. I didn't have a border stencil of the right size and with the right design feel to it, so instead of quilting the border right then, I started on the binding and finished that while I pondered the border. In the end, I decided to repeat the same star stencil in the border, but I varied the positioning a bit and used the border space to complete the design I'd stenciled part of in the setting triangles.

The quilting's not perfect, but for the way I plan to use it, it doesn't have to be. All in all, I think it turned out pretty okay.