Shining Softly Quilt

Welcome to another TGIFF party! And if you're thinking, "Gee, Leanne has hosted TGIFF twice already this month" you'd be correct 😆 As one of three TGIFF managers (along with Laura and Anja), I take care of making sure the linky party runs smoothly during January, which means stepping up to host when there's no other host signed up. If you blog and you'd like to host the party, there are plenty of open spaces in 2026 and we'd love to have you! You can sign up here (hosting is really easy, I promise!).

And now on with the party! This week I'm sharing the quilt that was actually my last finish of 2025, and the Stash Artists pattern for January, Shining Softly.

Don't ask me why, but in my head Friendship Star blocks have a 'correct' way to lean (to the right, if you're wondering), so having them purposely lean in both directions felt very odd to me. But I love the jewel shape that creates in the space between the stars!

As always, I had fun digging into my stash for the right fabrics for my stars. I did have to buy a few, though, because I didn't have enough pink or purple blenders to not repeat any. Oh darn, right?

I coloured this design a lot of different ways on my computer before I settled on the one I actually wanted to make. While I'm not a huge lime green fan, I feel like it really makes this colour palette sing. And having the colours run diagonally is so much more interesting than if they went straight across.

While I was piecing the stars and assembling the top, I wavered back and forth about how to quilt it. Part of me wanted to do something to highlight the shapes in the negative space, but I couldn't decide what. Another part of me wanted to quilt something swirly to emphasize the way the stars seem to be dancing across the quilt. As you can see, the swirly part of me won. I used Aurifil 1125 50 wt for all of the piecing and the quilting.

I was kind of obsessed with how the sun being low in the sky really made the quilting texture stand out.

I took these pictures the same day I took the pictures of Thread Love, which meant it was a snowshoes-required kind of photo shoot. Since then, we've had even more snow! It's several feet deep in our backyard now, and there's more in the forecast for tonight. It just keep coming!

If you love stash-friendly patterns like Shining Softly, come join us in Stash Artists! We're doing a Mini of the Month series in 2026 along with what I'm calling our 'main' patterns every other month, plus we get together virtually to sew every month. We'd love to welcome you into the community 💖

Now it's your turn! What have you finished recently? Link it up below and be sure to visit some of the other links to celebrate their finishes, too 😊

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

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