Quilt Finished

  

This quilt of interlocking asterisks was just finished, quilting, binding and all. I could have entered it in the upcoming Bayberry Quilt show with the theme of Stars, after all the very name "asterisk" means star. But I didn't know when I would complete it and didn't want to push myself. It's really a winter time quilt and will be put away until about October.  I enjoyed the piecing with scraps and did not specifically try to make the connecting "petals" match.  

It has the look of a "modern" quilt but, in fact ,is not. I saw the design in one of the quilt magazines (probably Quilters Newsletter) with a pattern for the petals and the layout. The original was designed by a quilter and published in a St. Louis newspaper in the 1950s. I didn't keep the article or I would give more specifics including the designer's name.  I love using my collection of scraps and I enjoy the way the asterisks go together.

Rushing Mother's Day

Four generation celebrated Mother's Day with a brunch out. The older three of us have made it a habit for a few years but this year Stella, at three and a half, joined us. This is not my favorite photo of myself and Stella will say the same in a few years but Rachel and Cory are happy with the photo ... my first with a selfie stick. 

Cory is "into" photography and takes very nice pictures. I'm so old fashioned I had never seen a real selfie stick before. Anyway, the day was chilly but the sun came out part of the time and we went to a "hide-away" breakfast-brunch place called Jack's Outback which is literally out back of the main drag of Yarmouth Port, its driveway so hidden I'm never sure I know where it is. It's very popular and we had to wait for a table.  Which was okay but if we go back another year we'll remember to make a reservation.

Much of the Cape is at absolutely prime spring beauty. We wait so impatiently all of March for the two or three weeks in April when everything awakes. Driving the narrow roads past homes with all sorts of flowering plants and trees is unbelievably beautiful. Last week when I used that road a couple of times -- going even further along it to other towns) the forsythia was fading, the daffodils, narcissus, tulips and azelas were gorgeous. Today they were mostly gone, replaced by cherry and other flowering trees that were full to bursting with flowers --thanks to lots of rain  in the past several days. Magnolia and lilacs were flowering too and everywhere the grass is succulently green and the newest leaves are tender and promising.  It's entirely appropriate that Mother's day should be celebrated at such a time of bloom and birth.

Blue States quilt to offset previous Trumpiana quilt

This is a companion to the red quilt -- same size, same number of small squares (36). For this, the group callenge was to use paper.  There are half a dozen photos, some of which are hard to see in this picture (click and enlarge - which helps a bit), a couple are partly covered by the tulle "rainbow" across the top. 

I wanted a relatively tranquil quilt contrasting the "hot" an "in your face" red one. The pictures have their meanings too. On the right edge, one up from the bottom the somewhat confusing pictures is of people watching a "virtual reality" movie with those big goggles on.

I found that I could adhere the pictures, cut from magazines, to lightweight interfacing with thinned glue. The pictures became stiff enough and secure enough to be sewed on.  Of course these art quilts are not meant to be washed.