Starry Starry Night

The quilt guild to which I belong is holding its biennial exhibition from 17th to 19th of October, and today has been spent getting my quilts ready to show, and completing the small one made for the challenge. This needed to be based on one traditional pieced block, which could be repeated more than once, distorted or made in different sizes as long as the original block remains recognisable. Despite being the one who suggested this theme many months ago, and having wonderful ideas about what I could do, my well established tendency to procrastinate resulted in me leaving it to the last minute as usual.



One idea was to do an asymetrical log-cabin using a single green silk fabric thinking the weave of the silk would give it texture and different shadings. Tried it, but the silk was too fiddly and the whole looked very boring.



Another idea was to use a star block in sizes from 4 to 8 inches, cleverly coloured to get some optical illusion happening. Tried to, but very small pieces of fabric resulted in corners and points not meeting despite great attention to detail, so it also ended in the bin.



Now with time short, I began again yesterday morning and finished a short while ago. Based on a traditional star block, it is actually appliqued not pieced (not time and too small) and slightly distorted. Not blue as originally planned, and not really my usual colours at all, but made with a single piece of very brightly hand dyed fabric from my stash. It is most unlikely to win any viewer's choice, but as there were only a few entries for the challenge, one more is good.

Somehow one does not expect large dogs to be sooks, but mine just a great big softy. She loves to lie on things - shoes, socks, dirty clothes left on the floor, jumpers thrown off in the garden when it gets too hot - anything really. She kept me company today as I stitched, and these are bags with quilts inside, all ready to go to the show..........