Spinning Stars

Night Sky Sampler 28

A couple of years ago, I designed the Night Sky Sampler 28 quilt to teach techniques to other quilters in my classes. I used a combination of blocks including one I designed, Spinning Star. Since that star turned out to be a favorite of mine, I wanted to try a design using only it and some small star-colored squares.  I wanted the stars and faux stars to be scattered across the quilt which is sometimes harder to do than making rows of blocks. So I spent a lot of time playing with them once I had them constructed.

I made a large star out of like fabrics for the backing and added some half square triangles and borders to make it the correct size. Conrad was busy helping me that day.
 

A friend, Michael, quilted it for me with an all over star pattern. 

Truer color on this pic.

     

I like how it turned out...on both sides!

The coloring on the picture above is truer to the color of the quilt. 

Night Sky Sampler 28...You can see the spinning star blocks across the lower half of the quilt.

One pattern, 3 finishes

I've been trying to finish quilts that I made but never completely finished. Sometimes when making quilts for classes it was easier to hang them without being quilted, plus I didn't always have time to get it done, so they waiting their turn to be finished.

This quilt is a variation of the Lotus Quilt by Jaybird Quilts. I originally made it out of reds, golds, and black and really liked it, but as I worked on it I could see that there could be flowers there instead of the more triangular design of the original. So I dug out some fabrics and tried it. I really liked it, but it was never finished as I'm sure I got busy on the next project and put it away.

Can you see the flowers?

I haven't been machine quilting very much the past year as I had some problems with my machine. I took it in to have it repaired and it seems to be working better now. I loaded the Lotus variation a few months ago and quilted it and recently bound it.

Finishing this one reminded me that I made another one using the Lotus pattern when my great-nephew Owen was born using bright graphic fabrics. I never did ask his mom if it kept him away at night...

The brown blur in that picture is his 2 yr. old brother running around him.