Star Light, Star Bright

I was out running errands today and trying to get some pictures of a new quilt. After finding a piece of dry sidewalk (we did get some snow on Friday), I snapped several photos and then noticed a man watching me. Several others had walked past, but this guy paused. I wanted to think it was the amazing quilt I had laid out in front of him. But no. He was simply concerned that the light was uneven. "Though maybe you want that," he hurried to add after commenting on my apparently poorly chosen photo-shoot location. Admittedly, I was more concerned with the natural light + dry area arithmetic than anything else. That said, when looking at the photos I took about a week ago of Star Light, Star Bright, I remembered that there is one advantage to more typically gray winter days: even light.

When you know you want a quilt to be bigger than a yard of fabric, it's probably wise to think about how much background fabric might be necessary to make that happen. Or not, and things will work out, just without a solid blue background across the entire quilt. The white space has grown on me since I added it to enlarge what would have been an otherwise paltry quilt. Conceptually, I wanted interlocking stars across a vast sky. And as long as the sky doesn't need to be all royal blue, I think I accomplished the goal.

Laura Gunn's Dogwood Flower seems to be a constant in many of the quilts I've made over the past 8 months. The supply is dwindling, so it will lose its privileged place. But whenever I reach into the scrap bin for the perfect complementary fabric, it stands out. Aqua + royal blue is pretty sweet.

I've had what I think of as the Michael Miller "Eye" print (the middle one) in my stash for several years now. I'm glad I finally found a good way to use it. It could be chopped up into smaller pieces, but there's something about the repeat I find enticing. I added some Riley Blake green circles and Monaluna brown circles, and kept things fairly simple on the back.

A little free-motion stippling and 1/3 yard of Orange Jewels (from Lizzy House's 1001 Peeps) later, and the quilt was finished. I used flannel as batting, which helped it crinkle up quite well in the dryer. I was able to drop this off to its new owner, Dov, on Wednesday. Dov is a little young to grasp what a quilt is, and his older brother was more interested in its possibility as a road for his trucks than anything else, but I think it will be well-used in all sorts of ways in the future.

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In other news, I'm off to Cincinnati tomorrow for a little under 2 weeks of research. Stephanie gave me some tips about things to do and see, but I'd love to hear more. If you live in or know the Queen City, where should I go, eat, drink, pet fabric, see cool things? I'll have a car, so I should be pretty mobile.