A Brief Absence

This is the first post I have been able to do since Sunday! This brief absence has been a result of my being at Mother's again for the second cataract surgery. It was a success! She is able to see perfectly from both eyes without glasses. Isn't that something for a 78-year-old? What amazing things modern medicine can do these days.

I was at Mom's Sunday afternoon through Tuesday afternoon. Had a very important date with my hairdresser Tuesday evening. Had to go back to Mom's Wednesday morning (I'd forgotten my phone and iPad chargers, plus she needed to have prescriptions refilled and wasn't yet driving), and I taught Wednesday afternoon and evening.

No chance for doing any sewing. No chance to do any blogging.

I will just go ahead and show you the similarity in the stars I referenced in my last post. The Sawtooth Stars that people are making with Barbara Brackman and her blog look like this. These are the stars that Nicole has made. You can find her at her blog, Sister's Choice Quilts.

I was reminded of a quilt I've had bookmarked for ages in an old APQ magazine from all the way back in December 2001. Gracious. Here is the magazine front, and a picture of the quilt.

The construction for the Sawtooth Stars in the Brackman sew along is different from those in the magazine, but the stars look identical, don't you think?

I will be making more. I'm rather excited about it, too!

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Seeing Stars

Lest I get so many UFOs done that I might run out, I have started yet another project. Geesh. I know. The last thing I ought to be doing is starting something new. Maybe I am incurable in the "let's start a project" department. Perhaps I will never fully grasp the "finish what you start" mentality.

Oh well.

I love following Barbara Brackman's blog called Material Culture. She has several claims to fame in the quilting world--quilter, fabric designer, and quilt historian are a few. She often hosts quilt-alongs with some historic purpose in mind. Because her fabrics are reproduction fabrics representing various time periods, she is currently hosting a quilt-along called Stars in a Time Warp. The gist is that she is encouraging quilters to make 6" Sawtooth Stars in a mish-mash of reproductions, thus resulting in a time warp of historic designs. You can click here to read the full details; my brief summary leaves a lot out, I'm sure.

Now I promised myself I wouldn't join a quilt-along this year; I have two from last year that still aren't finished. But what would be wrong with just making a bunch of stars? I have already made a bunch of 9-patches and a bunch of 16-patches. I wouldn't have to dig very deep to find a stash of churn dash blocks. So I'm not really doing a quilt-along; I am just making a bunch of stars.

Justifying.

Another blog I follow rather faithfully is by Nicole called Sister's Choice Quilts. Nicole caught the star-making bug from Barbara Brackman and has made lots of them. Look at the picture of her stars in this post she wrote about them.  If I can get her permission, I will grab her picture and post it here because it reminded me of a quilt I have wanted to make for a long, long time. I saw it pictured in an old issue of American Patchwork and Quilting magazine  It is from 2001, so I had to go digging. Have a look.

 Glossy magazine pages always have a shiny spot, regardless of the lighting, but I think you can still get a pretty good idea of how similar this picture is to the blocks Nicole had on her design wall. Definitely some differences in how the stars are made, but the resulting stars are surprisingly similar.

Well, let me just go ahead and show you the two I've made. Yes, I will likely make more. I seem to be losing the points of my flying geese units, so I need to figure out where I'm messing up - either I'm cutting inaccurately or my quarter-inch seam is unreliable. I expect to get this worked out by making more Sawtooth Stars.

Further justifying the start of a new endeavor and to reiterate: I am not doing a quilt-along. Rather, I am adding to my list of quilts to make in 2015 one that has been on my radar since 2001.*wink*

Happy Quilting, Friends!