Starry Log Cabin: the next UFO project

The next project I pulled out of my UFO bins was a small (42" square) quilt/wall-hanging.  The pattern is from a Leisure Arts booklet, "Christmas Sparkle" by Mary Jane Carey of Holly Hill Quilt Designs.  Back in 2014, I bought the booklet, a fat quarter pack and some coordinating yardage to make the cover quilt.  Everything languished in a holding pattern until now.

This is an incredibly simple, easy pattern to make ... a whole bunch of sawtooth stars around the perimeter, an inner border, and a BIG log cabin interior that serves as the background for an appliqued Christmas tree.  Honestly, it took me 4 days of sporadic piecing to get the top done.  It's just that easy.

I was able to find some sizeable flannel pieces that I sewed together in a big color blocked layout for the backing. I was able to piece an oddball sized batting piece to a more useable shape.

Today, 4/30/2016, I started the quilting.   I'm outline quilting the sawtooth stars and doing a loopy design in the middle of the stars.  I was pleased to find a continuous thread pathway so I could stitch the outline and loopy interior without starting and stopping.  If there's one thing I just detest about longarm quilting, it's designs that have a lot of starts and stops.

In the photo to the side, I've drawn in the quilting design on the sawtooth star in black.

 My original plan was to quilt continuous curves (aka Orange Peel) in the background fabric of the stars, but once I actually quilted the stars, I realized this would put a LOT of thread down.  More thread = a stiffer quilt ... and that is exactly what I do NOT want.

So ... the continuous curve quilting was eliminated.

The inner border gets an undulating feather design.  I've chalked in the corner curves and the spine itself. 

For me, the placement of the spine is very important.  Most of the time, I want uniform, symmetrical feathers on either side of the spine and if you get the spine placed weirdly, you get weird feathers.

You can see the chalked in corners and spine in this photo, but the chalk will wash out.