science ribbon star quilt

along side amy's lion king quilt, this was another great feat of 2015 quilts.
i had this quilt planned for awhile, because my mom and i had picked up the fabric for my physics majoring sister when we first saw the set in store, but never thought i would have to seriously get down to business on it at any specific point in time.  then, aileen got engaged and set her wedding date for april of 2016...  this was clearly a quilt that was planned to be for HER and not to be gifted as a "shared" item since it was a smaller sized quilt, so i had to get the ball rolling, and quick.  between september when she got engaged, and the sunday before thanksgiving, this quilt took up the entirety of my existence.  it was just supposed to be a simple twin sized quilt, but apparently the dimensions guide i found on pinterest for block numbers was either off... or well... i don't know what else. because this is what it turned out to be...
yes, this "twin sized" quilt ended up needing one of my queen sized battings, and that was almost not enough for it either.  that row you see on the back?  yeah, that was supposed to be on the front.  when i first started cutting pieces out, i had 6 prints and was planning to do 9 of each.  that plan was quickly changed when i could only get 6 blocks out of each so my mom ran to beverly's the following week and picked up a few more of the science prints.  there were multiple trips in the future when i ran out of the solid colors once or twice.  they saw me a lot during those months, but in the end, it was worth it!
at first, i had the green as one of the "ribbons" that wrap around the printed block, but since there were SO many different shades of green in them, i thought it would be better to keep the more neutral colors (gray & white) touching the block, and the green as the background. it totally helps the blocks "pop" a bit more.  as you can see now a little better in the close up, i scattered the different blocks all over instead of having them in rows of the same print.
much like her ruffle apron, i used polka dots in there as a print to border off the quilt without being too "in your face" with additional colors.
i used a 4" wide ruler to chalk line the quilting lines, and used a walking foot on my janome dc2010.  at first, i safety pin basted everything and started stitching from there.  i got about two thirds down the first side, and then saw how completely awful the back was wrinkling.  that was the saturday before we were leaving.  i pulled out everything at 2am, and went to bed.  sunday, i swept the driveway and prepared to spray baste.  i got the batting attatched to the back, and ran out of basting spray.  ran to beverley's, no luck.  ran to joann's, found it, but had left my phone at home so i was without coupon.  luckily, i found one in a shopping cart, checked out and ran back home to continue on my endeavor.  i was back on track to quilting, and managed to get it all back together and completed by sunday evening.  the binding was attached and pinned to hand sew as we trekked to idaho the following day.  it took me from reno, nevada to idaho falls, idaho to get the binding done. it kept me warm in the car, that's for sure!
since i decided to make it 6x8 on the front instead of 6x9, that's the bottom row that got added to the backing so it didn't go completely to waste.  i found this great atom print in the clearance section of beverly's to use for the back and it worked perfectly.  the row on the back aligned with the third row from the top on the front.
better closeup for the atom print fabric.
and yet another name tag!  i don't know what i'll do if i ever run out.  haha
and there you have it!  one mega science-y quilt that is now residing in idaho at college.
for the tutorial on the ribbon star block, head on over to freshly pieced :)