This quilt went to momcindy (Cindy R.) in Colorado. Cindy sent a fat quarter of a white tone-on-tone with her 30 charm squares. The fabric was a lovely Christmas fabric in deep reds, greens, creams and black. It really wasn't overly Christmas-y so that made it quite easy to work with.
Cindy is this really amazing woman that I wish you could all get to know. In October, Cindy will have reached her first year of being cancer free after undergoing some major treatment for bladder and uterine cancer--yay, Cindy! She was a nurse and then became a lawyer who represents abused children in court. Cindy also has a lovely 7-year old adopted daughter--and, as if she doesn't already sound like a saint--she's been married for 20 years to the same sweetie! (I just hope I'm not standing behind her on judgement day. Really, how would anyone look good following that kind of woman!)
For Cindy I chose to make a quilt with the block known as "Morning Star". Why? The Morning Star is also known as the Evening Star. In reality, its a planet--Venus, which was named for a personage that represented love and beauty. This "star" shows brightest as the long darkness of night begins, shines through the night and then brightens again as the new day dawns. Can you think of a better symbol for someone like Cindy?
I paper pieced the center to get all those points just right. The border was rotary cut. I added from my stash a tiny bit of white tone-on-tone to the outer row of points as it ended up taking a bit more than a fat quater for all the white areas, something to note if you decide to make one of these yourself. The dark green border was from my stash--it worked so perfectly with Cindy's charm squares.
Because so much of the quilt was made up of these lovely points into a star, I decided to use the stitch-in-the-ditch method for quilting. I sewed in the seam along all the points, corners and border. Yes, it was a bit tedious to do that, but the effect was great and the star pattern then showed on the back. Here's some closer looks at the quilting which was done in white.
The backing fabric I found at Craft Warehouse here in Oregon and it was just perfect. Not only were the colors spot on, but all the words were so fitting for Cindy and her life.
In lieu of the typical box of goodies sent along with a mini quilt, I made Cindy's daughter a doll quilt of her own. Her favorite colors are purple, blue and green. I kept the quilting light so that the little quilt wouldn't be too stiff if she wanted to play with it. All the fabric was in my stash, including the vintage fabric I used for the backing and a few of the squares on the front. I'll be doing a tutorial on this quick mini quilt a bit later, so for now I'll just show you a pic of the front. This 22" quiltie is now hanging on a lavendar wall in Colorado.
And finally, one last look at the mini charm quilt which measured around 19" square and has 140 pieces in the top, 132 of which were in the center block!
Enjoy your quilts Cindy and Aurora!
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