Guest Star: Quilts from my MiL

From Guest Star Prairie Quilter:
The big star is a replica of a quilt from Kentucky made around 1870. I call it My Kentucky Star. The multi star quilt is "My Williamsburg Stars". It is a replica of a quilt I saw in the museum in Williamsburg when we were there two years ago.

Note from SpSq: These are but a small sampling of Prairie Quilter's fabulous star quilts.
Thanks for sharing, Prairie Quilter!

And it scares away monsters, too

I designed* and pieced this quilt top in January 2008, several months before its recipient was born. Summer 2010 I gave up and asked my mother-in-law** to do the actual quilting. She came up with this fabulous star pattern just for me, brought the quilt to our new house and proceeded to show me how to finish it by binding it by hand (thanks so much prairie quilter!). Then the quilt sat in my house for a few months and sometime about a year ago, when its recipient was 2 1/2, I actually mailed it.
According to her mother, the recipient loves it and says it keeps away crocodiles or some other monsters.

I present it to you now because it is star year.

*In this case, I designed by combining several published ideas and selecting fabrics. No individual element is original from me.

**Prairie Quilter machine quilts professionally and obviously does a great job. Let me know if you need contact information.

My Brother is a star . .

. . for many reasons. At the moment he's a star because even though he is a publishing maniac hot shot scientist, has two very busy daughters, is planning a trip to the US soon, and is on crutches in a multi-story house, he sent me this photo to guest star on my blog.
This close-up of an Ohio Star is for the quilt my mother made him. The quilt contains about 15 such stars and, in my memory, is more of a royal blue than this image shows. The quilt is bright and beautiful. It was hand-quilted over a period of time, mostly in 1978-79 when we lived in Fort Worth.
Thanks MB.
Other readers take note! You, too, can be a guest star.

Good Luck Aries Babies

Three of my friends gave birth within the last three weeks. Welcome to the world little Aries babies!

Here's a blankie (yes, intentionally hexagonal) that I knit for my new little second cousin. I'm found of the "citrus and sea" color combination for a baby of either gender (like me, my cousin did not want to know in advance), but no, mother, I am not painting the "nursery" orange and lime green.

Deconstruction of a Dinner

How many lucky elements can you pick out from the image of the ginger celebration dinner?

1. Sparkling Wine The vintage Canard Duchene was on sale for $15. While neither of us was overwhelmed with the 1999 vintage, perhaps because the ginger salad dressing and ginger-soy tuna overwhelmed the champagne, we were still lucky to be able to try it for the price.

2. Scrabble Hard to tell from the photo, but I drew no vowels to start (two games in a row!) which was lucky for The Mister as my wasting a blank on the first move, (along with his superior playing), led him to victory.

3. Triple Ginger Cake, Roses, and Nice Candles The Mister did his part and bought roses from a student organization I'm associated with. I baked a dense cake with dried, fresh, and candied ginger and the beeswax candles from my Seattle Sibs seem to be lasting forever.


4. Celestial Quilt Top Just a hint of the lucky stars I'll be sharing with a baby who is due in April but who's mother is certain will emerge any day now.

5. Having a Mister with whom to cook silly theme meals, drink champagne and play Scrabble. Sometimes I'm just really lucky.

Anything made with love is lucky

Thus, this skinny-beach towel shaped blanket I knit for Kaliel, a very special young person, will be lucky.