A Quilt By Any Other Name

Call this what you will, I have to admit it’s one of my favorite designs yet. It’s a modern-style quilt, inspired by folk lore.  Here in northern Montana, on our coldest winter days, ice crystals will form in the air, and the sunlight playing off of these crystals sometimes makes it appear that there are two smaller suns flanking the real sun. These reflections are called “Sun Dogs.”

I won’t be telling you how to make this quilt in this post, because the pattern is included in the latest issue of Fons & Porter’s Easy Quilts magazine. The editors chose to call it “Stars Over Santa Fe”.  In fact, this pattern is the one I mentioned in last September’s StarStruck challenge post. I hadn’t used Island Batik fabrics for the sample quilt.

With all the open space available in this quilt, I knew I was going to send it to Tiffany Barcus at Unique Quilting and let her turn her mad longarm quilting skills loose on it. I texted her a sketch of the quilt top, and she immediately started firing back quilting design options. I love it when someone gets as excited about one of my quilts as I do. I liked all of Tiffany’s ideas, and fell in love with three of them. Since I couldn’t choose just one, I made a second quilt top, this one featuring Island Batiks.

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For the magazine quilt, we combined the filigree quilting, with little “ice crystals” sprinkled in the open spaces. The crystals were made with an iridescent thread, so they have a little shimmer.

For my Island Batik quilt, I chose the “mosaic” quilting pattern, which combined with the brown, blue and green fabrics, I think gives the whole quilt a little more “masculine” appeal.  I used Aurifil threads to piece this quilt, and Hobbs Warm and Natural® batting.

My friend Cheryl also made a top for Tiffany to work her magic on. Cheryl chose the concentric circles option for her quilt.

 

I have always loved designing pieced quilt patterns, but to be honest, my creativity stalls when it comes to the actual quilting. That’s why I am so grateful to have two longarm quilters – Tiffany and Kathy – that I know I can give carte blanche with the quilting, and they’ll do an awesome job.

If you’d like to make your own “Sun Dogs” or “Stars Over Santa Fe” quilt, pick up the Fall 2019 issue of Fons & Porter’s Easy Quilts. If you don’t find it on your newsstand, you can order it from The Quilting Company.