Rainbow Galaxy Published!

Hold the Phone!  Its time for a Give-Away! 

McCalls Quilting will give away 3 free issues to 3 lucky readers who leave a comment on this post .  Just leave a comment!  That is all it takes!

I will choose 3 winners from comments on Friday, December 21. 

Here are the OFFICIAL RULES for the contest. 

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Whoo Hooo!  My Civil War Stars quilt just returned home this week and much to my amazement it got a new name:  Rainbow Galaxy.  I guess because it is a lot of stars and they are all different colors, get it?  Hehe, yea took me a while to figure that out too.  Some days I am not the sharpest knife in the drawer.

But here is the best news.  McCall’s Quilting just published it in their special publication called America Loves Scrap Quilts Winter 2012-13. 

My quilt is on pages 66-69.  You can see it HERE.

Let me tell you the story of this quilt.  I was wandering around on eBay one day looking at old quilts and saw this great old red and white quilt.  Now this was way before that big red and white quilt exposition in NY happened.  I just was struck by the pattern.

Being the curious type, I wanted to see it in more detail so I scanned the listing for a close-up.

I loved the secondary pattern which was formed by the white space between the blocks and had to figure out how it was made.  I realized that it was a combination of two blocks:  a variation on the variable star and the counterpane block.   I immediately drew it up in EQ7 and was off!
I tried a variety of colorings, mostly variations of red and white.

Then I turned it on point. . . Yes, the original is a horizontal setting.  Here is what it looks like on point:

Strange huh?  I sorta liked it like that but I knew all those pieced setting triangles would earn me no friends!  LOL  So I returned to the horizontal setting and tried other colors.

I loved the civil war repros a lot but thought it needed a border.  In the red and white versions I created the illusion of a border in my fabric colorings.  But I thought this one needed a real border, but it had to be simple.

Viola!  (pronounced wah-la’)  The Civil War Stars quilt was born.  I sent it to McCall’s Quilting and they wanted to publish it.  It took me quite a while to get all the civil war reproduction fabrics I wanted to make it.  There were 41 stars and I wanted each one to be a different fabric.  I had a lot in my stash but they all tended to be blues and reds.  I needed more variety.  I went shopping in the stash fabrics from some of my quilty friends who kicked in a few fabrics and then I shopped the online fabric sales and purchased a few more in interesting colors and textures.
It went together really fast and the blocks filled my design wall and I was ready to put them together.  Then I discovered I had only made 8 rows of blocks and when I consulted my drawing there were 9 rows of blocks!  Yikes.  I raced to my LQS, picked up a few FQ’s from the repro section and scooted home to make up five more blocks.  Thank heavens I had enough background fabric.
I finished the top and ran it over to my quilter – the incomparable Brenda Weien of Brenda’s Machine Quilting and asked her to do her magic.  I always love how Brenda “reads” the quilt and knows just what it needs to make the pattern work.  She is a wizard with thread and did a fabulous job on the quilt, as always.

Quilting Close ups VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Here are a few pictures of the completed quilt so you can see her work up close and personal.  Now that the quilt is home, the magazine is on the news stands I have to figure out what I will do with this baby!  It is 80 x 80, a bit small for my queen-sized bed.  I think it will become a snuggle quilt on my recliner or perhaps a Christmas present for my new daughter-in-law.  Hmmmmmm. . . . . . . 
Now I discovered I may have to change the label.  Why?  Well look at it.

It was originally scheduled for publication in the December 2011 issue but looked too “Americana” for that issue so they held onto it.  The told me they would publish it in a different issue so I waited patiently to find out which one.  When I got an email from their editor last week saying they were returning the quilt I asked if they were returning it because they were no longer going to be able to find a place for it.  To my delight she told me they put it in their annual Scrap Quilt issue!  Well I knew my quilt would be very happy there and home it came.
I like the label, however, so I may just leave it in place and add a little note to the bottom identifying where it was REALLY published.  HEHE.
Hope you go buy the issue!!  Cuz there are lots of great scrap quilts in there!  If you decide to make this quilt I would love love love to see what your version looks like!  Yup, it’s a Happy Scrappy Quilt.