Thank you Judy. For the bear quilt I wasn't thrilled with the coordinates Hobby Lobby had for the bear fabric so I went stash diving in my FQ drawers and got lucky to find some from Connecting Threads  that I thought were better. I had help too, I picked out 5 or 6 different ones and a friend helped me narrow it down to the barn red and the persimmon.

Cari

Lynne, Marcia, Ami and Suze, thank you!

Cari

Dee the pattern is called Turtle Island from this website - http://www.starquiltpatterns.com/Web/2Patterns/Patterns1.html

I just found out a few days ago that her website is back up. Two years ago when I thought I had lost the pattern the website was inactive and nothing was being sold. There's a couple more of her patterns that I want to make. Someday lol.

Cari

The llama is really cute!

Cari

ooooh, she does have some interesting patterns.  I really like this one but don't need a queen size quilt.  Wonder if I could do it in a miniature version.  http://www.starquiltpatterns.com/Web/2Patterns/Patterns1.html

how good are her instructions?  

The star patterns are usually 60" (what she calls queen size)or baby size. You add borders to make it as big as big as you want. Each of the 8 diamonds that make up the star are 2 and a half feet long so the star itself is 60" square. It's done by strip piecing so that makes it easier than sewing a bazillion diamonds one at a time.

I thought the pattern was well written, step by step with good pictures.

Cari
 

Thanks.  I went ahead and ordered the pattern.  the price was reasonable.  I'll see when I get it if I can size it down to perhaps 24 x 24 or so.

At the end of October, I finished assembling all the Deco Garden blocks into one, big, humungous top.   Holy moley, this thing is BIG.  I intentionally made it a king sized top so I could use it on our bed but seeing 108"x108" on paper and seeing a 108"x108" top hanging up is mind-boggling.

I have a spot on one of our fences to hang my tops/quilts for photo ops.  It's typically in the shade, which is good for picture taking.  Unfortunately, this privacy fence just is NOT tall enough to allow this top to hang its full length ... so you can't see the bottom border.  Trust me, it's the same as the top border.  :-)

When I started this project in June 2018, I bought an entire bolt of Moda Marbles in black for the background blocks and sashing.  Because I was substantially increasing the size of the final quilt, I had absolutely NO idea if even one bolt would be enough.  I crossed my fingers and hoped.  When I finished the last block and had sewn on the last sashing, I had exactly 21" left of the bolt.  Whew.

But maybe not enough ... I still haven't calculated if that's enough to make the binding.  <worried look>  However, I'm not as concerned about the binding as I was about having the same fabric for the block background & sashings.

So, this top is now done.  It's folded up and hanging in the closet with all the OTHER tops that are waiting their turn to be quilted.  It's gonna be a while because a king sized top is just a whole lotta real estate.   (ahem: I have at least 2 other king sized tops waiting, too).

"It's folded up and hanging in the closet with all the OTHER tops .... "

I have a mental image of your closet full of quilt tops resembling that scene at the end of "Raiders of the Lost Ark" ... you know, the scene where a government employee is storing the Ark of the Covenant. 

What a dreadful fate for such an awesome quilt top.