The Double Stars story

Mom - batik double stars, originally uploaded by Mellicious.

I brought this quilt home last weekend and I have it on my bed. It's really beautiful - I'll have to get Rob to help me get a decent picture of it.

There was sort of a whole saga behind the making of this. When I was still going to Friendship Bee, maybe 4 years ago, a couple of people requested a block like this*, so I made at least two of them for that. Then after she looked at the ones I was making, Mama got intrigued with the block, and she started making her own. I'm pretty sure she made every one of these blocks herself, she didn't have the bee do it or anything. Then when she got them all done, she started putting them together (without any sashing) and she hated it. It really did look bad - I agreed with her - I think it would be ok with a coordinated color scheme but these randomly-colored blocks just didn't work. But we stumbled across this setting in a book, I think, and it worked great, don't you think? Now mind, I think she had the quilt top completely assembled with no sashing, and she took every bit of it apart and put it back together again. But I think it was worth it.

*I've probably explained this before, but the Friendship Bee does an exchange deal where you make a block for somebody every month, and when it's your turn, you get to specify what block, what colors, etc. So in return for your monthly block, each year you get a set of 12 blocks back in a pattern of your choice. I used two years' worth of Friendship Bee mojo to get the majority of the blocks for my Faceted Amethysts quilt, and Mom's Blue Oregon Trail was done the same way. I finally quit because making the block every month was too much for somebody who quilts one day a week - I mean, I got them done, but it was taking up a large amount of my quilting time every month, and after two years I got tired of that. It was a very good experience, though.