[my sister] love[s] [her] all stars

Sonja of Artisania, you may just be my pattern-designing hero.

To give you an idea of how serendipitous this quilt (top) turned out to be, here's a shot of what my incredible sister and her (edited to clarify) awesome boyfriend got my daughter for Christmas...

(The sneakers, not the {super-sweet} unicorn costume).

I just so happened to have stumbled upon this brilliant design last November, so, coincidentally, twenty-three "pairs" of All Stars were wrapped up and waiting for them that day.

I felt like quite the shoemaker, turning out 23 pairs in 24 hrs ;)

Okay, so technically they weren't at the "wrapping" stage, but in some sort of holiday adrenaline rush I managed to paper piece every last sneaker in time to lay them out on the basement floor so they could at least get a glimpse at what was brewing (months later, my fingertips are still recovering).  And I have to admit, having never paper pieced anything before, I was pretty anxious to see how these high tops were coming along, too!

The finished size of the quilt will be about 60" x 80" (side note:  the pattern produces a 52" x 59.5" throw, but I rearranged the sections in photoshop and printed them at ~130% to make it a two-lap sized quilt instead).  I used too many prints to name, and paired them with an antique quilting cotton background.

"I Love My All Stars" --> "My Sister Loves Her All Stars"

Somehow, most of my seasonal sewing took me in a solids-only direction, and I almost went there (yet again!) with this.  But as soon as I saw all those fabrics come together in a sea of blue and cyan, I quickly remembered why I've always been a prints person.  To pay homage to the heavily print-less holiday, however, I did throw in some shades of brown.  Those also helped give this the coastal feel I was going for (we've spent many happy summers together at the beach).

The "beachiest" high top of them all (and quite possibly my favorite!)

What do you think? Sonja's certainly got something special going on, that's for sure!  So thank you for thinking up a pattern so well-suited to my favorite all-stars-loving duo.

Now, all that's left to decide is the quilting design... I tend to default to straight line/echo quilting, so any thoughts are welcome (and appreciated!)

Linking up with finish it up Friday over at crazy mom quilts later today {another first this week ;)}.

Happy Friday!