Once the colors are picked, I place them to form the points of the eight pointed star. Quilt-making like many handarts done by women depends on an understanding of geometry and number. Eight-pointed stars are, as would be expected, are based on the number 8, so each row of the star is cut in multiples of 8. Eg. 1 black in center of point is multiplied to 8 to form the eight-pointed star and 5 red diamonds in a point means I cut 40 red diamonds. One point times eight equals 8 black diamonds, 2 white equals 16, 3 yellow equals 24 and so on, 4/32, 5/40, 6/48, then reduces to 5/40, 4/32, 3/24, 2/16 and 1/8 for the pale yellow outer points.
The corners of the quilt are big squares. To include the 8 directions, I cut 8 triangles in colors from the eight-pointed star and put them together to form the square.
The point starts to emerge with 1 black diamond in the center.
I liked this version with 6 green, but I didn't have enough green for the last two points. The solution was to replace the inner two green diamonds with an indigo brocade that I had bought to make Sage a vest when he was a boy.
It took trying out several different versions to get the final design of the eight-pointed star.
From the center, each point of the star is 1 black,
2 white, 3 yellow, 4 red calico, 5 red, a row of 2 green, 2 indigo brocade and 2 green, a row of 2 turquoise, 1 fish batik and 2 turquoise, 4 yellow craddleboard prints, a row of 1 yellow baby print between 2 lavender calico diamonds, 2 sky blue, 1 yellow.
2 white, 3 yellow, 4 red calico, 5 red, a row of 2 green, 2 indigo brocade and 2 green, a row of 2 turquoise, 1 fish batik and 2 turquoise, 4 yellow craddleboard prints, a row of 1 yellow baby print between 2 lavender calico diamonds, 2 sky blue, 1 yellow.
Like putting a square of batik with fish in center of corners. It works with the fish batik diamond in each point.
The triangles between the star points are black and sky blue for night and day.
A few options for the triangles that make up the four corners. Once I pick one, I will make all four corners the same.
Part Three is to sew the diamonds together into strips of six, then sew six strips together to form points.
But first, because lots of my material is almost 30 years old and not colorfast, I need to wash quilt pieces in hot water with vinegar to let them bleed and shrink, then dry and iron flat.
Watch for Part Three of Making a Star Quilt as it happens.
Photographs, text and quilt-making by Charleen Touchette 2010.
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