Stripes and Stars

This project has been percolating in the background for the past couple of months, and you've seen early stages in previous posts.  Here are some photos to refresh your memory.

These are the 2-1/2 inch triangles given to me by Lynne, offcuts from a very successful quilt that I'd show you had I only taken my camera to quilting the day she brought it to show us.  You'll have to imagine these feedback sort of prints on a base of white:  very fresh and tranquil.

I decided to separate the polka dots from the florals and discovered that Lynne had serendipitously cut them in sets of eight, exactly what I needed to make them into wonky stars.  Here, I'm just getting started, still trying to decide whether to use shirting stripes in blue and white for the backgrounds.  Would there be enough contrast in value, I wondered?

I decided that the contrast was okay, and that the shirtings were more interesting for my purposes than a plain white background.  Years and years ago, when I was first starting to quilt, I fell in love with the cool subtleties of these stripes in white and blue in men's shirts at the thrift store.  I bought a lot of shirts and took them all apart (salvaging the buttons, of course, for some use still far in the future).  I have a few bits of yardage and a few bits of upholstery in amongst this assortment, as well.

As I began to put the stars together, I felt that the shirting in all parts of the background was slightly too predictable, so decided to mix things up by making one corner a bright, something to contrast with the star colour of that block.  I had a lot of fun choosing those corner squares, and choosing something close but not too close to fill in the centres of the stars.  And I enjoyed mixing up the shirting fabrics too, and setting some of them so the stripes ran vertically while others run horizontally.

Once all the triangles had been used up in stars, I ended up with this, a collection of 26 blocks.  I laid them out in a straightforward set and pondered them.  This wasn't going to work as a layout, that was for sure:  the bright corner square, offset to one side of the block, turned the block by block layout into something too chaotic to be pleasing.  Time to think again.

It seemed to me that the blocks needed both space and contrast, something to make the lights look lighter and let the brights shine, each in their own little bit of quilt real estate.  In keeping with the vaguely nautical theme I felt was happening, I decided on a deep royal blue sashing to separate the blocks.  To make the next design phase easier, I put a length of this fabric up on the design wall and laid the blocks on top to decide on spacing and layout by eye.

I decided on a four-patch sort of thing, a narrow sashing separating each block in the patch, and I decided to emphasize the four-patch idea by rotating each block in the patch 90 degrees.  This rotation brought the bright centres to the middle of the block and they suddenly became coherent in a way they hadn't been when they were all oriented the same way.  I like the way the stars appear to branch out from the bright centres.  And I don't know whether you can see it, but I can certainly see a subtle but pleasing secondary pattern in the narrow shirting fabrics that now appear to connect the centres of the stars to one another.  Now I appear to have a bright centre square, a sort of border square centring on the stars, and an outer square.  And, yes, I can count:  I omitted the two squares whose stars couldn't really be seen because they were almost the same value of blue as the shirting fabrics.

I experimented with the spacing of the sashing and with bringing in contrasting small squares at the interstices of the sashing.  To me, this sashing looked too narrow.  I made it wider before I went on to the potential corner squares.

In the end, the corner square seemed to interrupt the block more than I liked, so I decided to go with plain sashing.   Winston decided it was time to wash his face.

When I had it all laid out, the six patches sewn together with their sashing and a mockup of the same blue around the outside as a border, it was okay, but not great.  Too regular, too subdued, too something or other.  My dear husband said he wasn't impressed, which was fine:  neither was I.  But he had a brainwave.  "Why don't you add a narrow red border around the outside?" he asked.  So I auditioned some red fabric.  Hmm.  Things looked perkier.

And so, after all that, here it is, the finished quilt top.

The sun rather bleached out the stars when I took the quilt top outside to hang on the fence but I do love the way the red border pops against all the green in the fields and trees.

I brought the quilt top back inside to show the whole thing and to show the colours in their true glory.

Ta da!  This isn't meant to be an heirloom quilt, or a work of art.  It's meant to be used.  I think it would make a great quilt for a little boy, and I'm waiting to find out whether the baby I have in mind for a quilt is a boy or a girl.  If it's a girl, she'll get a different one that's nearly finished (at least the quilt top).  I'll show it to you next week.

Dh's word for this quilt is "handsome."  I think he's spot on.

I like it for its quiet good looks and orderly but cheerful aspect.  And for the way it came into being, from a styrofoam meat tray filled with Lynne's triangles to the finished product.  I know it's possible to plan a quilt, but that isn't the way I make a quilt, apparently.  I hope you enjoyed seeing the process behind this one.

Comments

[Jill]

Beautiful Anne! This is my favorite kind of quilt, one that is not planned to the 'nth degree and is open to serendipity.
The stars look like shooting stars to me.

[steph]

handsome, indeed!!! maybe drop dead gorgeous!!!!!

[Anne at Shintangle Studio]

Wow, Steph! Thank you! I'll tell my dear husband that perhaps his remark was a little understated. I'm tickled that you like the quilt.

[Anne at Shintangle Studio]

And Jill, thank you too! I like the idea of shooting stars: I hadn't thought of them that way but I see exactly what you mean.

[Hildred Finch]

I think the quilt is super, and it is so interesting to follow along with the creative thinking process that goes into its creation.

[Anne at Shintangle Studio]

Thanks, Hildred! I have to admit that I can't see the point of planning a quilt: where's the fun in knowing exactly how it will turn out before one begins?