Wonky Star King Quilt

For years, I slept with a made in China quilt I had bought in 1997 at a super discount store - think cheaper than Walmart.  I loved it.  It was the PERFECT light weight and I looked and looked and LOOKED for a replacement for it.

In July 2011, I found myself in NYC at a delightful sewing shop in SOHO.  One of my regularly creeped bloggers Ashley of Film in the Fridge had posted MANY times about her love of Liberty of London fabric.

I found myself buying a very small bundle of fat 16ths of some REALLY pretty Liberty of London fabric.  It was INSANELY expensive (Shhhh don't tell my hubby he would FLIP).  Not everyone was as happy about my purchase as I was.

I knew I wanted a new quilt, and I knew I wanted it to be Liberty of London, but how the heck do you turn a very small stash of very pretty fabric into a KING sized quilt.

I pondered that thought for a year!

I finally stumbled on Silly Boo Dilly's Wonky Star tutorial and got the guts up to cut into my precious Liberty fabric.  It a pretty easy pattern because its meant to be wrong.  I am lousy at measuring so its perfect for me.

I made this

then a few more....

I knew I was on to something but I had to use a LOT of white to make up for my teensy bit of Liberty. I used a white king sized flat sheet for the white.  I put it on the bed and placed out the stars and figured out where I wanted them, and tore the sheet up into blocks.  You can see the lines in this pic of how I assembled the white parts.  I just made it up as I went along.

I tell you, all the quilt bloggers I creep and drool over are all FANTASTIC photographers.  They have my utmost respect.  Photographing a big quilt is HARD, especially when its HUGE.  I think you can get the just of my design from this one.  A whole lot of white with a smattering of Liberty!

Had to lie this beast out on my garage floor to baste it.  Its BIG.  I'm sure my neighbours thought I was crazy crawling around on the garage floor.

I backed it with a king sheet from the Shabby Chic line from Target.

and edged it with this

Once I had it all quilted and put together, I decided it needed something.  I ended up hand stitching around every one of the stars with different coloured embroidery floss.

And more stitching....

And done!

I was worried about quilting it.   Its straight line quilting.  I  eyeballed it and managed to feed it all through the machine!  Yeah! I can't believe I managed to quilt a KING sized quilt on my home sewing machine!

I have made many quilts in my day, but this is the FIRST that is for ME!  I can't tell you how much I love it.  It is the perfect weight.  I used a bamboo batting and its SO soft and comfy.

I bought myself some super cute sheets at Target last week that look perfect with it.  I can't tell you how trilled I am with it!  It feels really great to do something special for myself!

I think it looks great with our $200 Ikea bed.  

Cost Breakdown: 

All told, I think it cost me around $150 to make.  The Liberty was around $60 - I have blocked it out honestly!  I used a king white sheet for the front, and a king sheet pink floral for the backing.  The edging is a black Michael Miller print with grey dots.  I raided my daughters stash of emboridery floss for the stitching.