The Blogger's Quilt Festival!

Today is the start of the Blogger's Quilt Festival over at Amy's Creative Side and I thought I would participate!
I have several works-in-progress that I think will end up being favorites, but we'll have to save those for next year's festival! For 2010, I've chosen the GIANT maverick star quilt that I made for a silent auction whose proceeds supported earthquake relief in Haiti.

I started with a large maverick star--I used 12" squares to complete the block, so...roughly 34 1/2" across once assembled.

For a little perspective, this is the block by itself, unfinished, hanging in our crab apple tree.

I then added three borders. A border of white to the top and bottom (to turn the square into a rectangle), followed by a border of patchwork strips, followed by another border of white. The first border was 4" finished, the patchwork border was 2" and the outside white border was 1 1/2" finished.

After adding the borders, it was time to quilt! I used random straight and curved lines, making sure that the quilt was adequately covered. You can see in the picture below that some areas are more densly covered by quilting than others. I wasn't too worried about it because this quilt top used such large pieces of fabric that as long as there was quilting in each square I think it'll be fine.

The quilt is made of Kona Snow and 10 or so prints from the Love line of fabrics by Amy Butler. It's backed in a solid piece of Water Bouquet in navy and is bound in Sandlewood.

The finished quilt measures about 43x54 and because the quilting isn't too dense, it's super soft and cuddly! The best news? The quilt helped my church youth group raise over $1,500 for some friends who are currently serving as missionaries in Haiti. They have 5 small children and lost everything in the earthquake, but they are starting to rebuild and I love that my "hobby" (...obsession) can be used to help people in need!