Starburst Quilt Along cutting

Hi!
I'm going to do it! Happy Quilting Melissa is hosting a quilt-along--it's a giant star called a Starburst! How can I pass this up?!!!!
Through browsing all of the bundles and collections at Intrepid Thread shop, who is linked with Melissa and put together bundles for her quilt along, I fell in love/obsession with a specific collection. However, I didn't get a lot of hours at work this month, so my hubby told me to wait for a bit longer before ordering.

So in order to jump in and not get too behind, I rummaged and rummaged through my meager stash, added to it, and bought 2 shades of yellow for background fabric. And I will be doing just 1 40" block for now. (*Yes, I have a plan--another baby quilt for another coworker.)

The background fabrics that I'm using for the Starburst, I am using to complete a few projects, such as making the binding for the yellow and gray quilt (see below), and replace the yellow/gold I ran out of doing Sylvia's Bridal Sampler.

(I sacrificed the beautiful Mariners Compass Star for a history high school class quilt project that my cousin is making. She wanted to do a history report with stories about our grandfather--and represent it in a quilt. I felt the star would be great to symbolize my grandfather--and since she had a tight schedule, I had this made up already! Therefore, I need to make another Mariners Compass, but only tiny scraps are left of the golds I used. The new fabric is not going to match.)

Here's the binding I was talking about earlier. I didn't have enough yellow to bind the yellow/gray quilt. I prefer double-fold binding, cut straight, especially for baby quilts or quilts that will see a lot of use; like this one is! I'm so proud that I got all this cutting done today!

I have to say, that joining binding strips in mitered seams is getting easier for me.

 I also have been trying some new notions to help reduce the raveling and twisting of the binding as I'm machine-sewing it on the front of the quilt. This one is called the Binding Buddy, purchased from Annie's Catalog/formerly Clotilde catalog. The spool rotates inside itself, and there are two little loop hooks on the outside of the spool, to tie ribbon onto. Put the ribbon around your neck, and the binding spools off easily! I'm going to test this out, but it's patiently waiting until I get the quilting done.

And P.S., I have less than a week to get my goals done for January:

1--finish the yellow/gray quilt

2 and 3--finish quilting the two firetruck quilts