Project Quilting 4 Wish Upon a Star

For the 4th Project Quilting Challenge, Wish Upon a Star, I knew I wanted to try to interpret my blog title, "Solar Threads".  I've made a few "New York Beauty" quilt blocks, and found a pattern that I liked, and sewed it up (foundation paper piecing) with the same batiks that I used for the first challenge.  I love rainbows, and wanted to reflect the way light from the sun changes into the spectrum of colors.  I also needed "thread" in the piece.

I initially was going to try to fuse some tiny pieces of the batik fabric onto the black body, as "thread rays", but wasn't very satisfied with how it looked.  I spent 2 hours in a car on Friday, going back and forth to our nearest city for some errands and lunch with a friend, and while driving and thinking, I knew when I got back that I was most excited about the quilting on this, so decided that I'd make the free motion quilting the highlighted part of it. 

Unfortunately my dog decided to "investigate" my work, after also deciding to go through our garbage while I was gone (something he hasn't done since he was a puppy many years ago).  Luckily hand washing it and ironing it was all it needed, but it almost didn't get done due to the extra time that took!

It's also one of the first time I've ever used contrasting thread to highlight the quilting instead of matching to hide it.  I must say I'm thrilled that I worked up the courage to do this.  Even better, my new sewing machine didn't skip a single stitch, or break a thread one single time!!  It's a wonderful thing!

I once again used an invisible binding, and purposely used a almost white backing to further highlight the quilting! This is going to be my "go-to" method of finishing these smaller art quilts for sure!!  Be sure to head on over to the Flickr group to see what others have created this last week!