Double friendship

Summer has suddenly arrived!  It was more than 90 degrees on Thursday and it's supposed to be hot all weekend.  Last Saturday it was chilly enough to wear a sweatshirt, but not this weekend!  Plus, we were having a really bad air quality day.  In fact, I don't know if I've ever seen air quality numbers that bad, but I am assured by people who should know that it's going to get worse as the summer goes on.  Should be exciting, no?

With the heat and the bad air, what else was there to do but stitch up a few things?  Here's the big finish for this week:

A decent, if sunny, substitute for a clothesline!

Friendship stars, set on point!  The blocks came from a swap that I did with one of my quilt groups last year, so none of the blocks were made by me.  But I finally put them all together into a quilt that is a little different from the usual friendship stars. I think it loses something in this layout because the connections between the blocks just aren't that prominent.

Since these were all solids, the rules for the swap called for gray "ribbons" in each block.  Who knew there were so many different gray solids?  I used Kona Ash for the setting triangles and corners, which I think looks pretty good. A little light in the picture, but pretty good otherwise.

Why is this post called "double" friendship?  Because:

Yes, that is a gigantic tree!

I made two quilts from the stars!  The larger one at the top of the post measures 76 by 85, a nice lap size.  The smaller one measures about 42 by 42, a good baby size.

I was originally planning to donate both of these quilts, but now I'm feeling a little anxious about that.  I didn't make these blocks, and it's stunning how different the interpretations of a quarter-inch seam are.  At first I started redoing some of the ones that I thought were really off, but then I ended up just giving in and tugging here and easing there so that most of the points and seams would match.  It took a LOT of Magic Sizing to get the larger quilt to lay flat.  I guess I will have to quilt them up and see what I think.  Solids are nice, but they are very unforgiving!

Speaking of quilting these up, it's just about time for a quilting marathon day around here.  There are a bunch of things all piled up and waiting their turns through the machine.  If the air is going to be that bad, I think I should plan many indoor activities.  Time to start piecing together some batting for all these tops.

Hope everyone has a wonderful Memorial Day weekend!  We are planning to go to a state park and maybe to a historical site, too.  If we don't melt!  And can breathe!  Plus there's this Philadelphia treat called water ice that we're planning to try.  Can't be too bad if it's hot and the drinks are icy, right?

Linking to Confessions of a Fabric Addict and crazymomquilts!