The Creativity Book: Exercise 4 - Other Space

Back in my first post about this exercise I said

Fourth, he requires whatever other space your endeavor requires. Quilting, my primary artistic medium of the moment requires a cutting table, a sewing table, fabric storage, notions storage, and a design wall. I have most of these things already and just needed to unpack them and arrange them properly. I'll keep you posted as that happens.

Well, like the comfy chair, this took some time unpacking and arranging.

First, I must wax poetic about my cutting table. It is four adjustable table legs from IKEA (which I got for FREE from my brother), attached to a 4x8 foot sheet of MDF, stabilized by a network of picture hanging wire, and covered with a cutting mat with a grid underlay from Cutting-Mats.net. It is 37 inches high, which is pretty optimal cutting height. I also use it for basting, since basting on the floor is knee torture.

My sewing table is nothing to write home about, but it's not awful. It's from IKEA and is on casters, which is convenient when I want to move my sewing machine to a different part of the room. Ergonomically a table that had a way to set the sewing machine into it so the arm was flush with the table would be ideal. I plan to save up for one of these. I think it would extend my sewing life.

My fabric storage is sufficient for the time being. I dream of Katie Pasquini Masopust's seven-tiered wired shelves with long work surfaces on top. But I don't have nearly enough fabric to justify that arrangement. Some day I dream of arranging my wee stacks of fabric by color.

My notions storage is a bit haphazard.

My design wall is minimal. The previous owner had cluttered up her gorgeously open walls with wee little shelves. I have repurposed those shelves and thus cleared off my wall. I don't have Homasote or flannel over the whole thing. But for now I'm OK with that. Also, I can only get about eight feet away from it, which I find insufficient. I'm contemplating either hanging white flannel or using mobile flannel covered Homasote to cover up the gaping closet maws with a design wall because I could get a good 20 feet away from it.

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Egg Quilt: Color

It’s been about three dozen months since I moved to California and joined the Flying Geese Quilters Guild, where I met Bridget Paley, who gives me dozens of eggs, whose colors I matched to the circles here by carrying crushed eggshells captured in clear packing tape through local fabric stores.

So this awesome friend of mine from the Flying Geese Quilters Guild has chickens. When her chickens lay more eggs than she can use, she gives them away. In March she gave me and two other members of the guild each a dozen eggs. We three recipients conspired to make quilts based on our eggs. Our goal was to finish them by the next guild meeting. So how do I get from a dozen eggs to a quilt?
The most unique thing about the eggs were their colors. I lined up my eggs by hue and value.

The top left egg falls squarely in the orange hue. It has a high value and a low chroma. Working with GIMP, I found this egg to have a hue of 41 which is really pretty much dead center in the orange spectrum, a saturation (vaguely translatable to chroma) of 62 on a scale where 0 is neutral gray and 100 is as full of color as color can be, and a value of 64 on a scale where 0 is black and 100 is as light as orange can be and still be orange of this hue and saturation.

The second egg from the left is ever so slightly more yellow than the first egg. Again, it has a high value and a low chroma. In HSV language that's 43, 66, 67 - so more yellow, higher saturation (less gray), and higher value (lighter).

The third egg from the left in the top row is more yellow than the second, with a chroma between the first and the second, and a value lower than either of the first two. In HSV: 49, 64, 59. This egg is an excellent example of how yellow at a low value is often misleadingly named "army green."

The egg in the second row of the third column is actually pretty spot on in terms of its placement in the correct hue column. According to GIMP, the hues of this egg and the egg above it are exactly the same. How awesome am I? OK, it's a weird talent to be awesome at, but still. This is even more impressive given the drastically lower chroma and significantly higher value. In HSV: 49, 42, 71

The egg in the third row of the third column is also pretty amazingly accurately located. It's ever so slightly more yellow than the two eggs above it. Again, it has much lower saturation than the eggs above and a higher value. In HSV: 50, 32, 77.

The egg in the fourth row of the third column is exactly the same hue as the egg above it (so ever so slightly more yellow than the top two eggs in this column). It is crazy low chroma and high value. In HSV: 50, 19, 87.

The fourth egg from the left is a bit more yellow than third column of eggs. We're definitely at the yellow end of the orange spectrum. It is very close in saturation and value to the third egg from the left in the top row. In HSV: 53, 64, 60.

The fifth egg from the left is slightly more yellow than the egg to its left. It has a slightly lower value than the egg to its left. The big difference is saturation - this egg is more gray than its neighbor to the left. In HSV: 55, 56, 59.

The egg in the second row of the fifth column is exactly the same hue as the egg above it. Dude, I rock hues! Like the trend in the column of eggs to the left, this egg is lower in saturation and higher in value than the egg above it, though that difference isn't as drastic as it was in the second row of the other column. In HSV: 55, 51, 62.

The egg in the third row of the fifth column is exactly the same hue as the other eggs in this column. It continues the lower saturation, higher value trend. It's pretty close to the saturation and value of the second egg in the other column. In HSV: 55, 42, 67.

The egg in the top row of the sixth column (also known as the top egg on the right) is, apparently, my downfall. It should be in the fifth column. It's the same hue as all the eggs in the fifth column. More specifically, it should be between the top egg in the fifth column and the second egg in the fifth column. In HSV: 55, 53, 60.

The egg in the second row of the sixth column is the yellowest of all the eggs here. It's not smack dab in the middle of the yellow spectrum, but it's a good deal closer to the center of the yellow spectrum than it is to the center of the orange spectrum. It's saturation and value are closest to the egg in the second row of the fifth column (i.e., the egg to the left of it - so that's a good arrangement). It's value In HSV: 58, 47, 61.

Now, knowing my proclivity for The New Munsell(R) Student Color Set, it comes as no surprise that I tried to match the eggs to swatches from the color charts. What did come as a surprise is the total impossibility of doing so. The 5YR chart is WAY too red to approximate even the farthest left egg.

By way of comparison (and an interesting demonstration of how GIMP's HSV is NOT equivalent to Munsell's HVC not controlling for photographic distortion), the closest HSV hue number to the most orange egg is 28 (which was only the hue number for the two farthest right chips in the second column from the top - if HSV = Munsell, all the hue numbers should be the same). This is twelve steps more red than the HSV hue number of the least yellow, most orange egg (41).

I had better luck with the Hue 5Y chart. The chip third from the left in the second row had the highest HSV hue number. It had an HSV of 52, 61, 73, which is closest to the fourth egg from the left (53, 64, 60). All of the eggs to the right of that egg were too green for any of the chips on the Hue 5Y chart.

The eggs in the third column had the same HSV hue number as the second chip from the right in the top row, but they don't look very similar because the saturation and value of the chip are 74 and 82. The range of HSV saturation numbers of that column of eggs was 64 to 19 from top to bottom row. The range of the HSV value numbers was 59 to 87 from top to bottom.

The lowest HSV hue number I could find on the chips was 44 on the farthest right chip on the third row from the bottom. The second egg from the left had an HSV hue number of 43. However, like the comparison in the previous paragraph, the egg color doesn't resemble the chip because the saturation and value of the chip are 73 and 44 whereas the saturation and value of the egg are 66 and 67. In this case the saturation of the chip and the egg are closer. The top egg on the left is too orange for the 5Y chart and not nearly orange enough for the 5YR chart.

Not capable of leaving well enough alone, I had to test the two rightmost columns of eggs against the Hue 5GY chart. The lowest HSV hue number I could wangle was the chip in second column of the top row: 72, way more green than the eggs in the fifth and six columns, which all had HSV hue numbers of 55.

"Why go through all this?" I hear you cry.

We perceive colors differently based on context. If we really want to identify the colors of things, we have to do some work. While running a picture of these eggs through Big Huge Labs' Palette Generator will generate uniform swatches, it's not the end of the color identification process. A bunch of HTML color codes and color swatches with names like "sycamore" don't really get you anywhere. But analyzing the hue, value, and chroma can tell you a lot more.

For example, these eggs, which I thought were orange and green, are actually yellow. This is HUGE! Imagine if I selected a color scheme for a quilt based on my inaccurate assessment the the eggs were orange and green. I'd have to go with a triad of orange, green, and violet, or a tetrad of orange, green, red, and blue. The actual color of the eggs isn't even in there. I'd go shopping or dyeing and lay out my fabric next to my egg pictures and be radically disappointed. Or even worse, I make the whole quilt in that color scheme and then when I set it next to my egg pictures I realize it's just totally wrong. Those two scenarios sound a lot less artistically satisfying to me than spending some time up front to get to know the colors before I buy or dye a thing.

I thought they were all very high values, but actually they run from 59 to 87. Value is the workhorse of quilt design. Knowing the value range of my inspiration eggs can help me incorporate a broader range of values in my quilt than I might based on my inaccurate perception that the eggs were all high values.

I thought they were all very low chroma, but actually their HSV saturation numbers run from 19 to 66. Again, doing a little color work offers me a much wider range of saturation possibilities than my inaccurate initial assessment.

I could take this numerical analysis even further - using the distribution of hue, value, or saturation numbers to help me decide the amount of each fabric to include in my quilt. For example, only one egg has a saturation anywhere near as low as 19, 32. Then there's a cluster of three in the forties, another cluster of three in the fifties, and a cluster of four in the low sixties.

If the most interesting thing about these eggs is their color, then it's worth taking some time and exerting some effort to get to know their colors. Maybe knowing the top left egg's HSV numbers are 41, 62, 64 isn't intrinsically useful. But spending time really getting inside those colors can help me make the best use of them.

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Blogger's Block of the Month: A Quilting Life

I am pathological. When I have too much on my plate, what do I do? Ask for seconds. So in addition to catching up on the last few blocks of the month from the Flying Geese Quilters Guild, I've decided to do the Blogger's Block of the Month. The first block is from Sherri at A Quilting Life.


The Blogger's Blocks of the Month are all supposed to be 8 inches when finished. But the blocks for the Flying Geese Quilters Guild are 12 inches finished. So my plan is to increase all of the Blogger's Blocks of the Month to 12 inches finished. That way I can put the blocks from both sets together into one big, beautiful, long overdue, sampler quilt for my brother and sister-in-law.

This month's block is pretty easy to scale up to 12 inches. You'll need:

• 8 - 3 1/2'' squares background fabric (where Sherri used the Kaffe grey, I used bright green Flea Market Fancy or Katie Jump Rope by Denyse Schmidt for FreeSpirit.),
  
• 4 - 3 1/2'' squares of medium/dark prints (where Sherri used four different Kaffe prints, I used one black and dark blue-green print from Lizzy House's 1001 Peeps collection),
  
• 2 - 4'' squares background fabric (again where Sherri used the Kaffe grey I used bright green Flea Market Fancy or Katie Jump Rope by Denyse Schmidt for FreeSpirit.), and
  
• 2 - 4'' squares of another medium/dark print (where Sherri used two of the same Kaffe prints I used the red and white print from Flea Market Fancy or Katie Jump Rope by Denyse Schmidt for FreeSpirit.).

This block sews together super fast. For the four half-square triangles I used the old make two at the same time trick: drawing a line from one corner to the other, sewing a quarter inch on either side of the line, and cutting on the line. I use a slightly larger square to start with so I had a little wiggle room to square up my pieced patch. Also, since I used the same print for my dark squares, I strip pieced the four-patches. I'm so excited to add this block to my brother and sister-in-law's sampler!

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Quilt Guild Block of the Month: Dutchman's Puzzle

June's Flying Geese Quilters Guild Block of the Month was Dutchman's Puzzle. Click here for a PDF with the instructions. I went to Quilter's Cache and downloaded their paper pieced geese PDF from the comprehensive tutorial on piecing flying geese.
I actually had this done in June, I just forgot to post about it. "Prove it," I hear you cry.

Yup, I won the block drawing. I have 32 gorgeous Dutchman's Puzzle blocks. My plan is to set them on point and make a king-sized quilt.

I didn't get a chance to make this out of the fabric for my brother's and sister-in-law's quilt, so it's on my list of BOMs to make up.

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Woo Hoo!

At the Flying Geese Quilters Guild I have a bit of a reputation for my jubilance upon winning anything, even the smallest door prize. So you can imagine the racket when I learned that I had won third place in Generation Q Magazine's Quilts Made Modern Block Challenge.

Mind you, I had a 3 in 10 chance of placing. But I had a better chance winning a drawing at my guild last night and didn't win that, so hey. Probability aside, those other seven blocks are AWESOME, so my competition was steep. And the first and second place blocks are SUPER AWESOME, so I'm totally grateful the judges (including Weeks Ringle and Bill Kerr of Fun Quilts!) thought my block was worthy of third place.

I came across this challenge by following the blog tour for the Weeks and Bill's newest book Quilts Made Modern: 10 Projects, Keys for Success with Color & Design, From the FunQuilts Studio. I learned about the book and the blog tour because I follow Weeks's fantastic blog Craft Nectar.

A few thoughts on my design process here. I printed out the start of a block, cut it out, and then started folding it along the lines to choose what kind of symmetry I would follow. I settled on making the design symmetrical around the line that divides the circle in my final drawing. Then I doodled with my ruler and compass (clearly modern quilters dig curves as the top three blocks all included circles or parts thereof). Once I got the line drawing I liked, I scanned it into a JPEG and used Paint to fill in the colors. I thought about Weeks and Bill's approach to color in The Modern Quilt Workshop: Patterns, Techniques, and Designs from the FunQuilts Studio. I picked an analogous color scheme centering on a peachy orange and two hues on either side of it, then a light and medium value of each. It's reminiscent of the color scheme in the XOXO quilt in The Modern Quilt Workshop.

Placing in this challenge is awesome, but I think I'm almost more excited about discovering this new quilting resource: Generation Q Magazine. If you're into quilting in general or modern quilting in specific, you will love it.

Thank you Generation Q Magazine!

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LQS Love: Bear's Quilt Shop in Garden Grove

I first entered Bear's Quilt Shop for a dyeing workshop put on by the Flying Geese Quilters Guild. The Guild doesn't usually hold workshops at Bear's so I was a little surprised. But then I saw the classroom. I can't imagine a classroom better designed for a dyeing class.

I dyed with Daren Pitts Redman in an almost brand new quilt shop with pristine white tables and floors, one sink, no washer, and no dryer. We all had dyed fabric at the end of the day, but the floor and tables had a little dye too. And we were all super anxious about getting dye anywhere. We also didn't properly rinse and dry our fabrics, so we didn't really get to see the final product until we were home . . . to be brutally honest, I air dried those pieces of fabric without rinsing them, folded them up, popped them into a ziploc bag, and they're still in that bag as I type . . . three years later. In fact, the reason I stopped by Bear's last week was to pick up some synthrapol to finally rinse those fabrics so I could use them to finish the project I started in the workshop I took at Bear's.

I also took a dyeing workshop at IQF Chicago, so that was in a hotel conference room . . . using the sinks in the ladies' room at the other end of the hall. Similarly, no one really got to see the fully rinse, fully dried results. And we were all having strokes out of fear that we'd ruin the carpet and get quilters banned from Chicago for life.
Now, if you cannot work in a space that isn't pretty, Bear's is not for you. Bear's whole space is practical. First, like a lot of LQSs in this area, they're in a office park/warehouse with low overhead. They've got the usual amenities like individual tables for each student and super comfy rolly chairs.

Second, unlike a lot of LQSs in office parks, they didn't cover the concrete floors. Not conventionally pretty, but totally functional. Whether mopping up dye drips or sweeping up thread clippings, this polished cement floor is easier to clean than any flooring I've ever seen in a quilt shop. That seems like it would only benefit the people who have to clean it, but I've taken some workshops in some otherwise posh shops, whose floors were totally gross. When I picked up my sewing machine's bag off the floor, a layer of dust bunnies had stuck to it. That's not going to happen at Bear's. Also, while I was in my dyeing class at Bear's I could focus on my project and not worry about whether I was dripping dye on the floor. Amazing what a little anxiety reduction can do for your creative process.

Third, Bear's invested in a stack of cutting mats so each student can use one at their station. This is handy because students don't have to bring mats, which tend to warp in hot cars, from home, nor do they have to wait in line for one shared cutting table. Bear's also has a counter-height cutting table for those so inclined.

Fourth, Bear's installed a serious pressing station. Instead of two irons on an ironing board for a whole class to share, Bear's has a counter covered with heat proof pressing mats with multiple irons. There are at least four outlets and each outlet is on its own fuse. This is important because I recall IQF Chicago blowing the fuses at every ironing station in the conference center.

Fifth, they have a full-sized washing machine and dryer in addition to two deep work sinks. None of this "go rinse and dry this at home . . . I'm sure it will turn out great!"
This is the place to go for dyeing and long-arm quilting. They've also got a lot of 108" fabric for quilt backs at INSANELY good prices. But this isn't a shop with hours and hours of browsing potential. Still, they fill their niche perfectly.

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LQS Love: Sewing Party in Laguna Hills

Sewing Party, my favorite LQS for hip modern fabrics, recently moved into a larger space including this gorgeous new classroom. [Click on the picture to see it a bit larger]

Edited 5/16/2011 to add:
Their new address is 23561 Ridge Route Rd., Suite F, Laguna Hills, CA 92653.

The classroom has individual tables for each student, ergonomic chairs, plenty of design wall space, and the neat little feature pictured above. It's a rail for a room divider, so if more than one group wants to work in this GIGANTIC space at a time, they each have a bit of privacy. I can't wait to see this classroom in action when I attend Malka Dubrawsky's Color Your Cloth workshop there on Sunday, May 21st.

The owner has an excellent eye for color and fresh designs. As before the move, the shop is filled with gorgeous fabrics including quilting cottons, home dec, voile, woven wool felt, and even some laminated cottons.

She also keeps it stocked with notions to make bags and accessories in addition to quilts.

They've also added a sweet little kiddo play area, appropriately colorful in the Kaffe Fasset section.

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Quilt Guild Blocks of the Month

May's Flying Geese Quilters Guild Block of the Month is a sawtooth star. Click here for a PDF with the instructions. As the instructions suggested I went to Quilter's Cache for the comprehensive tutorial on piecing flying geese.

I followed Quilter's Cache instructions for Speed Piecing Method B. Not my best work. Pretty challenging to get the geese blocks the correct size and to not cut off any points. As you can see, some of these outside points are going to be a challenge to not cut off.
And the crazy stuff I did to get this to come out even . . . well, I'm glad this one wasn't for the block exchange at guild because I would be embarrassed by the jacked up seam allowances on the back of this one. But in the end the inside points are good and the overall block size is correct. Also, the nice thing about following Quilter's Cache instructions for Speed Piecing Method B is that my directional background fabric (i.e., the mushroom print) stayed heads up without much effort on my part.
Last month I mistakenly attributed the gnome print to Heather Bailey for FreeSpirit. Actually the gnome print and this mushroom print are both by Heather Ross for FreeSpirit. The rest of the fabrics in this block and last month's block for my brother and sister-in-law is from Flea Market Fancy and Katie Jump Rope by Denyse Schmidt for FreeSpirit.

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Quilt Guild Blocks of the Month

I've resolved to participate in the Flying Geese Quilters Guild Block of the Month this round. The theme is "Sew many Geese to Piece!" They have pictures and instructions on the website.

This is my block to bring to guild. We're supposed to use beige as our background fabric. I hope this is sufficiently beige.

My plan is to make a second set of blocks for a sampler quilt I promised my brother and sister-in-law ages ago. Well, by the date of the release of that Heather Bailey for FreeSpirit gnome print I'd say it was about six years ago.

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Fibonacci Baby Quilt

If you saw the bunny rabbits among the fabrics for the mathematical baby quilt, you may have recalled that the 13th century Italian mathematician Leonardo da Pisa, a.k.a. Fibonacci (son of Bonacci), described the hypothetical birth pattern of rabbits resulting in the series of numbers 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8 and so on. This has come to be known as the Fibonacci sequence. The pattern I'm adapting from Mathematical Quilts by Diana Venters and Elaine Krajenke Ellison is based on the Fibonacci sequence.

For the original pattern, you'll have to check out the book. I've modified the original pattern by extending the Fibonacci sequence from 1, 1, 2, 3, 5 to 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8. The original quilt without borders finishes 22 inches square. By adding another number in the sequence, the center without borders finishes 38 inches square. This makes the quilt a reasonable size for a baby quilt. Additionally, if your fabric didn't shrink too much from the standard 44 inches wide, you will be able to cut the pieces for the center with very little wasted fabric. Venters and Ellison suggest purchasing one yard of each fabric for the center. However, even extending the sequence of the quilt, with my cutting plan you can make this center with 22.5 inches (5/8 yard) of each fabric (that's leaving an extra inch for clean up cuts).

The second, and I think more significant, modification is in the construction method. Venters and Ellison suggest something approximating a template approach, cutting out each individual piece and sewing them back together again. I developed a strip piecing construction method that makes short work of constructing this quilt. In my example, the dark fabric is blue and the light fabric is green with rabbits.

Layer the dark and light fabric together so you can cut strips from both fabrics with one cut.

Make a clean up cut to make an even edge. Cut a 1 1/2 inch strip from both the dark and light fabrics from selvage to selvage.

Cut a 2 1/2 inch wide strip from both the dark and light fabrics from selvage to selvage.

Cut a 3 1/2 inch wide strip from both the dark and light fabrics from selvage to selvage.

Cut a 5 1/2 inch wide strip from both the dark and light fabrics from selvage to selvage.

Cut a 8 1/2 inch wide strip from both the dark and light fabrics from selvage to selvage.


Sew the dark 8 1/2 inch strip to the light 5 1/2 inch strip.

Sew the light 8 1/2 inch strip to the dark 5 1/2 inch strip.

Sew the dark 3 1/2 inch strip to the light 2 1/2 inch strip.

Sew the light 3 1/2 inch strip to the dark 2 1/2 inch strip.

Sew the dark 1 1/2 inch strip to the light 1 1/2 inch strip.



Press all seam allowances toward the dark fabric.

Stack strip sets of the same size so you can cut two units with each cut. The seam allowances are pressed in opposite directions, so they should nest perfectly. From each strip set cut 2 8 1/2 inch units, 2 5 1/2 inch units, 2 3 1/2 inch units, 2 2 1/2 inch units, and 2 1 1/2 inch units.

Arrange alternating colors appropriately.

Assemble units into 4-patch blocks.
Assemble 4-patch blocks into 16-patch blocks.
Then complete the center.

You may notice that between cutting the units from the strip sets and assembling the quilt, I did a little machine embroidery on the blue pieces. I embroidered numbers and dots that will be connected by quilting stitches to render various mathematical ideas related to the Fibonacci sequence. For example, Pascal's triangle, polygonal numbers, branching patterns, pathways, and the Golden Rectangle.

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IQF Long Beach 2010

The International Quilt Festival in Long Beach is here again. While I haven't found much time for quilting lately, I did make time to walk through the quilts and vendors at IQF. It was much more impressive than last year.

One of the neat things at quilt shows like IQF is that sometimes the quilt makers will stand next to their work and answer questions, sign autographs, or pose for pictures. Here is Rita Verroca from Westlake Village, California, with her quilt Roses of Shenandoah, which won first place for traditional applique in the International Quilt Association's Quilts: A World of Beauty competition in 2009. Rita hand embroidered, hand quilted, hand appliqued, and hand pieced her original interpretation of a Mariner's Compass pattern. She deserves to stand proudly next to her beautiful quilt.

Crazy About Ballet by Linda Steele of Park Orchards, Victoria, Australia, won first place for embellished quilts in the International Quilt Association's Quilts: A World of Beauty competition in 2009. The hand embroidered blocks depict scenes from different ballets. While I'm not that serious a fan of ballet, I have a quilt in the design phase that would involve a number of appliqued and embroidered blocks which might benefit from a similar setting.

Illuminated Alphabet by Zena Thorpe of Chatsworth, California, won third place for innovative applique in the International Quilt Association's Quilts: A World of Beauty competition in 2009.
Apparently, Zena Thorpe is something of quilting phenomenon here in California, and given the amazing detail in this hand appliqued, hand embroidered, and hand quilted piece, I am not surprised.

Rose Hughes, a fellow member of the Flying Geese Quilt Guild, made Journey-Mythos: Follow the Yellow Brick Road which was part of a juried exhibit of quilts by members of Quilts on the Wall, an art quilting group based in Long Beach. She did a presentation at our guild on color last year. Her trunk show afterward was filled with abstract landscapes encrusted with beads.
About a quarter of the quilts at this show were antique quilts. The following are from the exhibit America Collects Quilts: International Quilt Festival Antique Quilts. This one is a four block rose and coxcomb made entirely by hand by an unknown quilter around 1880. I like how a quilt this large, 65 3/4 by 85 inches, is made up essentially of four blocks and two borders. If you put it that way, making a quilt so large doesn't seem so daunting.

Unlike most antique quilts, the maker of this hand pieced and quilted Lone Star quilt from 1845 is known: Mary Mern. She even gave it a title: Silk Stars. Heck, if I'd hand pieced that many diamonds together, I would have titled and signed my work, too. My personal interest in this quilt is the setting. I've got some Lone Star aspirations, but the trick is always how to make this inherently square pattern into a rectangle to fit a bed. This quilt measures 87 1/2 by 101 1/2 inches.

Star of Stars, circa 1845, another amazing quilt whose maker is unknown, collects some great details of early quiltmaking that I particularly enjoy. First, Jinny Beyer and her precision drafting be damned! When this quilter's gorgeous diamond sashing didn't end perfectly at the intersections, she just hacked it off. But that doesn't mean she didn't care about details. Look at this amazing scalloped binding which follows the curves of the border print . . . Jinny Beyer would love a border print like this . . . well, except for the mismatched print in the corner.
Jinny would also love the fussy cut center of the Lone Star.
This quilt was made by an unknown maker around 1800 using a huge variety of fabrics colored with natural dyes.

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