Stars: Cary Grant Appears

Frustrated by the lack of snaps or sewing items in general at the local hardware, drug store, grocery or Dollar Store, I turned to Stars for solace last night.   The next block is called Cary Grant.  This is the 6th block and the final one on the second row.   Of course I have decided to not do the outside borders until all the blocks are done in order to protect the borders from my arm resting on them during stitching the centers, but still, I am getting close to being half finished, which is nice.

As a reminder for those stitching Stars themselves, my colors are A violet, B black, C terracotta and D copper.

Cary Grant looks most like a quilt block star to me of all the blocks so far.  In the photo above, the star-on-a-diamond center is finished and I have worked five more steps around the center, leaving just the complex corners to finish.  There are four steps to the corners and I also have to do the sashing underneath the block before I can put Stars away and pull out my next painted canvas.   I have another night or two of stitching on this, in other words.

Cary Grant doesn't introduce any new threads but the black legs you see above were quite interesting to work. I used Neon Rays in black to do the lower layer.  This is a ribbon-like thread that didn't quite cover the canvas.  I could see little specs of canvas "dandruff" beside the stitches.  I was thinking I might have to pull the Neon Rays out and try another black thread to get better coverage but I discovered that when I added the little copper lines on top of the Neon Rays that the specs disappeared.  Now they look like part of the metallic that crosses the vertical stitches of Neon Rays.  Interesting effect!

I also switched threads around on the pairs of triangles that flank the overdyed triangle between the black legs.  I used Trebizond silk in pale peach for my C thread and then outlined the stitches with one ply of violet Splendor as my A thread.  This is not the thread type Tony used but I wanted a slighted raised stitch that was shadowed by the outlines so I changed things a bit and am happy with the result.  I did stick with his color scheme, just switched thread types some.

In other Stars news, Theresa wonders if Genny Morrow's Twelve Patch Sampler influenced Tony's Stars. It wouldn't surprise me, but the general outline with the offset corners and the sashing around each block, plus the use of star motifs is a common quilting pattern.
http://atwillowtreepond.blogspot.com/2010/08/genny-morrows-12-patch-sampler.html

Donna's been working on her Stars.  The first link has a photo but she's been too busy to photograph her progress in the second, more recent link.
http://majtravaux.blogspot.com/2010/07/back-to-regularly-scheduled-programming.html

http://majtravaux.blogspot.com/2010/08/stars-update-sans-photo.html

Sara Leigh is working on her Stars also.  I just love her happy colors!
http://remedialstitcher.blogspot.com/2010/08/okay-julys-gone.html

There are other Stars stitchers in cyberspace.  If you know of any more, let me know.  Half the charm of this project is watching the colors develop on each block so it is a great deal of fun comparing each version of Cary Grant to see how it looks in various colorways.

I should have snaps today as I have to run an errand in the next town to the east not very far from Ben Franklin's, my preferred crafts emporium, and they carry sewing supplies.  Oddly, not every crafts store does.  What on earth are they thinking?!


Written by Jane/Chilly Hollow Blogging at http://chillyhollownp.blogspot.com Archived Yahoo 360 postings at http://profiles.yahoo.com/chillyhollow