Do.Good Stitches: Star Cluster Nine Patch

I have another Do.Good Stitches quilt to share with you!  Our January quilter ended up leaving the group, so I offered to take over her month.  I didn't have a lot of time to choose a block, but I've been dying to try this cluster star block for awhile so I went with it.  Unfortunately, I didn't have a chance to test it out before posting it for all my bee mates to make and it ended up being a little bit harder than I expected.  Mostly because there are lots of tiny HSTs.  But everyone did such a great job, even though I know this block probably wasn't their most favorite to make.  At least the second block I requested from them was easy!
ANYWAY.  The tutorial for the star cluster block can be found HERE.  We made the 12 inch version, so I recommend the 16 inch version.  :)
I asked my bee mates to make their blocks in whatever colors they consider girly.  Since I'm having my third boy in a month or two, I figured it would be fun to play with girl fabrics for once.  :)  The blocks turned out amazing and they go together really well!  Here is the finished quilt:

I used a purple flower print for the back, but it's pretty busy so you can't really tell.

Of course I had to make a label:

For the binding I decided to go quick and easy and just folded the backing over onto the front.  Whew!

And now I want to talk about the quilting.  I decided that this quilt would be a perfect one for practicing lots of different FMQ designs.  I also knew that I wanted a good mix of straight and curvy lines, plus a good mix of large scale and small scale designs.  So I took Angela Walters' Dot to Dot Quilting class on Craftsy and used her designs for about half my blocks.  It was fun coming up with something different for each block, and I definitely got some good practice in!  It's also a good thing this a charity quilt and not a show quilt.  I know the recipient will love it either way.  :)
I used Aurifil 50 wt thread in white and it blended in REALLY well.  A little too well in some spots - you can't really see the quilting designs.  But sometimes that's a good thing, right?  (I'm well aware that my quilting is NOT perfect!)  I quilted a pebble/bead design in all the sashing and now I know that white quilting on white fabric shows up better than anything else.  :)  But I kind of love the effect.
NOW.  For documentation purposes (I will be boxing this quilt up tomorrow and will never see it again), here are photos of every single block.  I'll spare you the commentary.  ;)

And a few more photos just for fun.  The back is so busy that you really can't see the quilting on the back at all. 

I have really awesome bee mates.  They did such a great job and I loved seeing the different fabrics they used for their own personal interpretation of "girly."

This quilt will be donated to a Juniors House to benefit children who have been victims of abuse or neglect.  I hope some little girl loves it!

Until next time!

Quilt stats:

Started: January 2015

Finished: March 13, 2015

Fabrics: Various

Batting:  Pellon Nature's Choice 100% Cotton

Finished size: Approx. 45" x 60"

Recipient: Junior's House

Methods used:  Piecing, Free Motion Quilting (on my home machine)

Binding: Backing folded over and machine stitched to the front

P.S. this was my March goal for ALYOF (#106), so I will be linking up HERE:

This was also goal #2 on my Finish Along Quarter 1 List.   I'll be linking up HERE: