Autumn Rains

Its done.  However the actual glow of it is not captured in the pic.  Just as I wanted  your eye focuses on the  stars and the rest helps it float on the quilt.  Have been considering doing another as a 9-patch of stars in much subtler tones. Actually much quieter tones.  There is just something about this star that just makes me happy.

 This is what I came up with for Wind Storm blocks.
Half step down, but only 4 rows and the side borders.  I have a plan, but still in my head.  I like how graphic the blocks are even though I used a busy print background.
It must be my Fall quilt except that the solid green look like green shoots or plants that were covered and got no sun for awhile.  That could be Fall too as there seems to always be something that got covered up during the summer.

                                         Started this foray into improv.  It will go slowly
                                         as I make elements when the mood strikes. The
                                         crossed triangles are from a couple other pro-
                                         jects, but they do work with what I have so far.
                                         Although improv looks easy, I found it takes a
                                         as much time as the cutting sewing for more
                                         traditional quilts.  I will say I think I make a
                                         bigger mess as scraps fly in all directions. It is
                                         also just so much fun.

I posted this as it is a not so blurry picture of the blocks.  I liked using cut outs from prints to make the flowers or parts of them.

At the Museum I am still cataloging the Nancy Cabot blocks. I am up to 1080.  Jinny Beyer in her book, Quilter's Album of Patchwork Patterns,  has 1379 and she does not include applique. Now wonder those pattern collectors of the 50's and 60's went nuts over trying to check and double check there collection to try to get them all.  It reminds of the games with collectible cards before computer games.  My older son played some of the games and tried to collect all the cards, including the hard-to-find ones.

The other amazing part is that all these blocks seem to have been published mainly between 1933 and 1938. It seems you would be busy day and night to publish so many blocks and make patterns.  The patterns seem to have been limited to mininmal directions and certainly did not contain any sewing instructions, mostly just the pattern pieces, how many were needed to make a quilt.  Certainly not what we expect today in a pattern.

Autumn is here and the leaves are especially brilliant this year.  I thought maybe the summer drought would have hurt the color, but no they are gorgeous.  However, there wasn't much of an apple crop as we had a frost at the exact time the apple trees were blooming.  Michigan is having to import apples from Washington to make us happy.

Off for a short color tour.  Hope we picked a sunny time.