Bye baby bunting.
Daddy's gone a-hunting.
Gone to get a rabbit skin
To wrap his little baby in.
This quilt started with the light blue toile next to the center star. The variety of animal heads wreathed by laurels seemed to be perfect Shadow Star centers. I used a few there but didn't know what to do with the rest. The middle of each diamond trio was fussy cut to highlight rabbits and deer. {And there's enough for one more quilt.}
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| Fussy cut rabbit and deer on Lone Star quilt |
The grey-blue of the toile called for darker fabrics - almost a reproduction feel - but then came the border.
When I don't know what to use next, my usual method is to toss the fabric {in this case, the sewn diamond sections} on different yardage until something sparks. This was the one that did it for me. It's such a contemporary design and while there aren't any gold colors in the diamonds, it blends well and actually enlivens the somber colors in the star.
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| Lone Star 6 baby quilt |
The triangular pieces were cut from one QST so they line up well. Of course, there wasn't quite enough so one corner square is pieced. There wasn't enough to match the pattern across all the sections but the offsets seem to work well enough.
Sewing Issues
I'm out of my favorite Mountain Mist Blue Ribbon batt and can't find it anywhere. The closest store quit carrying any Mountain Mist and only has Pellon. I decided to purchase some on sale. It's thicker than I like, not as evenly spread but shrinks up well {although it seems a bit uneven. On this small quilt the shrinkage could be from the quilting so I will test this some more.} I'm not as fond of this as MM or Hobbs.
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| Quilting details on Lone Star 6 baby quilt |
The previous Lone Stars were quilted with the walking foot. Wanting to change designs, I switched to FMQ where my troubles began. Lots of skipped stitches. Ten or twelve in a row with no rhyme or reason why it's happening. I cleaned the machine {again}, changed the needle, rethreaded, used the bobbin hook all to no avail. This is the same thread I've been using for a while so the only difference is the thicker batting.
I decided to use the walking foot for orange peels on this small quilt and didn't have any skipping problems. On my next trip I purchased a larger Schmetz 90/14 microtex needle and tried it on the wavy lines of the background. Still not working so back to the walking foot until the machine gets cleaned and repaired.
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| Binding detail on Lone Star 6 baby quilt |
The binding is a navy lawn printed with tiny birds on branches. It made a crisp edge here, even after shrinkage. The quilt is about four inches smaller each direction after a quick wash.
Size: 37" x 37"
Design: Lone Star
Batting: Pellon 100% cotton
Thread: cream Gutermann 50 wt cotton
Quilting: Orange peel and parallel lines with walking foot
(after FMQ didn't work)
Approximate Yardage: 3.625 yd
Reading Update
I'm currently reading two books from my "purchased but never read" shelf: Memories of Silk and Straw and Memories of Wind and Waves, both by Dr. Junichi Saga who collected stories from his older patients every evening.
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| Two books by Dr. Junichi Saga |
He lived in Tsuchiura which is in the lower left corner of the frontispiece map. Both books contain stories of ordinary people from the area: shopkeepers, farmers, yakuza {gangsters}, geisha, and midwives. Another of his books relates the stories of a local yakuza but I wasn't interested; however, Bob Dylan read it and liked it so much he seems to have included some of the wording in his album, Love and Theft.
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| Map of the Lake Kasumigaura area from the frontispiece of Memories of Wind and Waves |
I've never been to Japan although DH has but I enjoy reading blogs like Pamela's Hokkaido Kudasai and Julie's My Quilt Diary for their art as well as their insights into life in modern day Japan. These books are almost an anthropological look at a former era - from the fall of the Meiji Restoration to the 1930s and reminds me of Lark Rise to Candleford and Letters of a Woman Homesteader. The former concerns small town life in England about the same time while the latter are the collected letters of Elinor Stewart from her Wyoming homestead. I loved Elinor's book but seriously wished they'd put the letters in chronological order. {I went back and marked the chapters into that order myself 'cause I'm just that way.}
Let me know in the comments if you'd like Dr. Saga's books.
Enjoy the day, Ann