Jo's Blue Star Quilt

I haven't blogged for a while but I have several posts in my head that need to be written. I don't seem to have much motivation at the moment, don't know why but that's a different issue.
Anyway, some time ago now, the lovely Jo ( @joanne333jones on IG) told us that she was moving to Denver, Colorado with her husband's job. Jo has been a terrific bee mate since we met at the first FQR retreat in 2012 and we are all going to miss her terribly. So I did the obvious thing and thought we must make her a quilt. The pattern I chose was Kasbah Chic by no hats in the house which was published in Love Patchwork and Quilting, in her favourite blue colours.
In actual fact the pattern was an absolute bitch, even though the end result was fabulous. The templates provided for the corner segments gave very poor results and the half square rectangles ended up too small. We ended up paper piecing our own corner segments and fudging the rectangles. My fellow bee members were all cursing me for choosing this particular pattern and I was wondering if anyone tests these patterns.
We all met up in London in June  ( in Tate Modern for the Georgia O'Keefe exhibition) and were able to give the quilt to Jo.

I had such fun quilting this and trying to line up the front and back ! ( I didn't succeed but it's close enough).

I made a star label for the back.

And here is Jo holding up her quilt in the restaurant at Tate Modern. There were a few tears from all of us.

The blocks were made by myself, Jane @picosailors, Moira @ kettleboiler ( who also provided the binding), Sue @ suespatch12, Sue @justsewsue and Teresa @hillyfilly. We were all in the original Kinky Bees group which later became the FQR Bumbling Honeys quilt bee. 

We all wish Jo well in her new life in the USA and she will be back in a year or so, so it's not forever.

I'm really looking forward to visiting her in the future and getting the inside info on the best quilting shops in Denver.