Star Within a Star

A couple of people asked me about this year's kindergarten bazaar quilt and wanted to know if it was from a pattern.

Mrs. Furui and I had seen something "similar" in one of the Japanese patchwork magazines but the instructions were very iffy.

"Here is one house pattern.  Make others to the same dimensions."

I'm sorry, I don't have the magazine at my house so I can't even take a picture of the picture.  There was a "river" crossing the quilt in one place, and there was a hint of a rainbow, but not in rainbow colors.  We couldn't figure out if it was trying to be a rainbow or a mountain.  There were scallop squares too, maybe trying to be far off forests... but none of us wanted to try those blocks.  I think the trees are almost the same styles but we drew the patterns ourselves.  (Mrs. Furui drew all the patterns.)  And we brought out books with house patterns in them and re-sized them to a standard size...

As for the placement of the blocks, that was an all day auditioning process with the main concern being the river... that kept getting longer and longer and winding around the quilt...  Looking at the whole thing now... well, I wonder why we chose to put that house there or this part of the river here.... But I guess that is true for any quilt that is an original.

"Why did we decide on THIS layout?"

It's done!  It's colorful!  It has its own charm.  I hope the person who wins it will enjoy it.

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Yesterday was a sunny day and I aired my futon again!  You know what that means!  Twice in less than a week!

I have been letting my Star Within a Star flimsy sit around for a few months now with no headway.  Am I going to machine quilt this or hand quilt this?  Since I have my niece's Starr Fire to machine quilt (haven't started that yet either) I decided to go ahead and hand quilt this.  So what if it takes months (or years)!  It will give me handwork to do in the cold evenings of winter.

I drew in quilting lines and then spent a couple of hours basting again (with Chip's help as usual.)

This will now reside by my armchair in the living room.  There won't be a whole lot of obvious progress as the hoop moves around the quilt but I'll show it from time to time.   October 1, 2012...  quilting started on Star Within a Star!