Ringing the Old Year Out

And ringing the new year in. This is my last finish for 2022. My husband works for a non-profit and they are having a fund raising Gala in February. One of the things this involves is a silent auction. He asked me if I'd like to make a quilt for the auction and of course I said yes!

I immediately knew I wanted to do stars. I love stars, but I sometimes shy away from them because they can be difficult to do. But when I searched for wonky stars, I found Elizabeth Hartman's tutorial for her Sparkle Punch quilt. I didn't want to do that exact quilt, but it got me started.

I don't have any pictures prior to the pin basting, but this is how it looked at that point. I chose not to make quite as many stars as Elizabeth did, but I do love the way the wonkiness makes them appear to twinkle a little bit. For the background I used Kona Pacific. I didn't want too dark of a color blue, and this one was just what was needed. I had some fabrics in my stash and bought some more to make the stars.

 

I was looking for a way to quilt this so there would be an illusion of movement. My first idea was swirls, but when I quilted swirls on my Christmas quilt just before this, I decided that wasn't the look I was going for. So I then decided to do organic soft waves, horizontally. To me this gives the feeling of a gentle breeze.

These pictures are before the wash and dry crinkle part. I decided to bind this quilt in the same solid color as the background. This is how it looks where there are partial stars. Where there are no stars, it disappears.

The backing is a wide back of cross hatch by Caroline Friedlander for Robert Kauffman. I wanted a wide back to make it easy on myself, and so it would have a very cohesive look. I gave it a name, and a label with all the information, since I don't know where it will end up.

Here you can see how the binding just disappears on the edges of the quilt. I think it is such an elegant look for this quilt.

And here I also included one of my new woven labels on the quilt. It is really my signature.

Here is the beauty shot of the whole thing, taken outside under cloudy skies. This is as true to color as we could get. I love the way the stars are so random on this quilt. I could happily love it and hang it on a wall in my house. Well, that's it for today and for this year. I wish you all a very happy new year. I hope this new year is better for all of us.