EXTRA! EXTRA! The January-June 2008 Northeast edition of WRBQ Inc.’s Showtime Quilters Guide & Directory, sporting our fabulous raffle quilt on the cover, should be available in quilt stores by the time you read this. Because of the tax situation, the guild will not be selling the book, but I know that City Quilter has ordered a supply – a rush is anticipated. Chris Janove wrote a lovely story about the making of the quilt for the book and upon our request, has expanded it for our members’ reading pleasure.

Star Jewels* The Story of our Raffle Quilt 2008
by Christine Janove

Quilt shows, quilt guilds, quilt groups—when all influences are in alignment, a really wonderful quilt can happen! “Star Jewels” is the result of all three: a class taken with Lynn Kough in 1998 at a quilt show; the need for a raffle quilt for the Quilters’ Guild of Brooklyn’s 2008 quilt show; and a design challenge given to me by my Tuesday evening quilt group.

My first quilt using this technique was prompted by a fabric exchange with members of this group. Each of us made a multi-colored star quilt. We would pick a color to exchange each month, trade fabrics during our first meeting of the month, and bring our completed stars to show each other at our meeting two weeks later. The purpose of this exchange was to experiment with others’ taste in fabric, make a charm quilt, and observe just how differently each of us put similar fabrics together. Once I’d finished that “Variable Star”, I wanted to make another quilt using the same technique, but was sidetracked by other projects. One spring evening several years later, these same friends and I were discussing the Quilters’ Guild of Brooklyn’s next show and how we might participate. One woman looked directly at me and issued a challenge ‘Christine, why don’t you design the raffle quilt, based on your star quilt?’ The timing was perfect!

I spent most of the month of July with colored pencils and graph paper, designing the interior galaxy of stars. The variable star blocks in this quilt are in three sizes, arranged in a staggered pattern. Someone suggested a navy blue background, so when I was drawing and coloring stars, I did it with that in mind. I looked at the design for a week or two, thinking about the irregular shape created along the edges. Then I decided that the best border would be no border at all, just a continuation of stars, but this time as blue-on-blue. More drawing followed.

To present the design to the guild, I made a miniature, fused mock-up of the quilt. I was very happy when it was enthusiastically approved. Now it was time to go fabric shopping. Much fabric was found in my own closet, but many navy blue fat quarters were purchased specifically for this project. Many guild members also answered the call for jewel-toned fabrics. I wanted to involve several guild members in the construction of the quilt, so I divided the quilt into nine sections and wrote directions for the piecing. With a few exceptions, all fabric pieces are triangles. I supplied pre-cut triangles in some cases. Several sections were assembled by quilters working in teams. I was a member of one of those teams and it was great fun to watch the parts of stars come together, and even more fun to receive each section and sew the whole top together. I went back to the Tuesday group to have another discussion: this time about the actual design of the quilting stitches. Inspiration was drawn from Van Gough’s “Starry Night”.

After the hand quilting was completed, another volunteer attached the binding and hanging sleeve. Soon it will have a dazzling raffle quilt label. The quilt has traveled to New Hampshire to hang at “A Quilters’ Gathering”, and to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania to hang at the “Pennsylvania National Quilt Extravaganza”.