Of all the over 300 quilts I have made, A Star Among Stars tested my discipline and perseverance the most. It is my interpretation of Willyne Hammerstein’s LaPassacaglia quilt pattern. It is entirely pieced by hand using English paper piecing. This is my first and maybe my last English paper pieced quilt!
While I did not enjoy piecing this quilt, I do love the way it turned out. It will definitely be a star in my collection of red and white quilts. I am slowly working toward publishing a book of red and white quilts.
If you are familiar with this pattern, you may know that once all the pieces are joined, the pattern calls for squaring up the quilt by cutting off some of the paper pieced rosettes. I could not bear to do that after putting in all that work, so I opted to appliqué the rosettes to a white, starry, metallic background.
I appliquéd angels and stars to the background to fill up the white space. I also added red star buttons for dimension and interest. I think the angels make the quilt.
My friend Maxine Moore quilted A Star Among Stars on her long arm using a swirly star pattern. She managed not to stitch on the angels so it allows them to stand out a bit. As you can see, stars are everywhere in this quilt.
The back of the quilt is a traditional red and white print. There is a hanging sleeve on the back for easy display and a label that documents the quilt.
Why would I torture myself to make this quilt, you wonder? Because my monthly quilting group chose this pattern as our annual project, and I did not want to flunk out of quilt school