Scraps to Treasures Quilt

I entered the Scraps to Treasures competition on the HGTV boards, sent in my fabrics, and just stared at the fabrics that arrived.  There were beautiful, but I struggle to even imagine making a random scrappy quilt.  So... I started sorting.  Yup, I'm a sorter.  Sorted.  Sorted again.  Light to dark, merging colors, rearranging colors.  Finally, I settled on dividing the colors into 8 different ranges and started pulling piles from my stash to add.  Fortunately some colors were already well represented, but I added plenty of orange, yellow, and purple.

Oops... Shoulda' rotated.
Anyway, these are my chosen fabrics, minus background.

My sketch.
I have a Mac and a non-compatible EQ5, so I draw out by hand.
Usually, this saves me from being too ambitious.
This time?  All triangles?  Awfully ambitious.

The center star laid out on the back of a cheapo table cloth.

Then I rolled it up and left it.  What was I thinking?  When I finally started piecing, I realized I had waited much longer than I should have to start.  Attempting to keep that many triangles in order (hundreds... probably thousands...)  drove me a little batty (wait, I was already there...).

Sewed a few triangles.  Then a few more.  Then I would sew something else, just to not sew triangles.  As I would finish a quadrant, I would wonder just what I was thinking.  Would it all lay flat after a firm pressing?  You see, I didn't iron all the resulting squares after each sewing marathon.   I have three small children.  They don't approve of Mama keeping her sewing in order, and ironing and the following trimming would have encouraged them to "help" by rearranging.  I didn't have time for that!

Did I mention the entire quilt is triangles?
This was only the dog ears from the blue and purple quadrant!

Top complete.
You can see the tan star in the corner... There are LOTS of stars in this quilt!
If I had been thinking when I laid them out, I would have made the center star radiate out more...
But I didn't think of that until I was half done.

Then it hits me.  How am I going to quilt this baby?

LOTS of layers.  Lots of missing points.

Hand quilting... cross-hatching in the "white" spaces.
Scroll-y tendrils in the large main star.
Little tilde marks in each eighth of the small stars. 

May I present "Star Light"... Thanks, Alzbe, for the suggested name and final photos.

Ahem.  About this backing.  I am frugal to a fault (in certain things, anyway).  I showed DH this backing, and he said, "Did you make it that ugly on purpose?"  Don't you know you don't say things like that to a quilter?

Awesome additions you should know about:
This quilt will be donated to charity/a needy individual.  Do you know someone who needs this quilt?  Leave a comment, and if your story tugs my heartstrings, I'll contact you for info!

You can check out all the other quilts HERE.  Aren't they amazing?

My quilt won first place for best use of color!

If you are a visitor from the HGTV boards, thank you for stopping by, and I hope you stay a while!

from the room of Zana's Ninis,

katie z.