Star Challenge

This year's Quilter's Holladay guild challenge was "One Star, few star, red star, blue star" or in other words, "Make a star quilt."  We had 10 beautiful entries.  Part of the fun of a challenge is not knowing who made which quilt, but when you've been in the guild for a little while you learn about a person's favorite color choices and the techniques that they like to use most and so you can make a pretty good guess at who the creator is.   I did pretty good at guessing this year but there was one which surprised us all.  More about that later.  

Let's start with the first place winner . . . drum roll please. . . .

Kaye

Kaye likes bright colors and is so technically spot on with all of her projects.  These were little pieces and they were pieced perfectly.

The second place winner was. . . .Nan

Nan is one of the few who hand quilts still.  She has a great sense of color and beautiful stitches.

 Ugh, my brain has gone blank as to who made this lovely.  I should know this.

This piece is from Marie.

I knew it was hers because the quilting was so outstanding.  She is a long arm quilter who does such tight clean work.  I want to quilt like Marie when I grow up.

This string star beauty was made by Alice.

 Alice was celebrating her 95th birthday Tuesday night.  She is another fabulous hand quilter.  She has made over 150 lap quilts for Walter Reed Hospital but now that they are closing she is making all her quilts for Quilts of Valor.  They are a very lucky group to have Alice on board.

This bright and beautiful piece was made by Andrea.  She started it for last years Ostrich challenge but didn't get it finished in time.  Fortunately for her because of the stars in the corners it fit this years challenge as well.

Way to go Andrea. 

Unfortunately Mitzi took her red and blue star quilt down before Barb got a chance to photograph it.

It's difficult to see but there is a star bag hanging on the corner next to Andrea's quilt.  It was made by Mardi, our charity quilt coordinator extraordinaire. If charity quilts and projects can reserve you a mansion in heaven then Mardi has a great big one with a spa waiting for her.

This last century pink lone star bed quilt is the one that surprised us all.  It was made by art quilter Lisa B.  She made it a number of years ago and it is nothing like the bright quilts she makes today.  We all grow and change in our color and design choices but obviously from looking at this quilt, Lisa B's always had amazing skills.

And last but not least is my quilt.  

I used deColourant Plus on a piece of my ice dyed fabric to paint a small lone star and I almost cried when the colors I painted were not playing nice, however when I turned the fabric over I discovered something beautiful.  The removal of the color on the back was great.  I quilted around the star and then pebble quilted around the entire star to make it pop a bit more.  It's the first piece I have quilted on my new Juki TL2010q.  I love how it quilts.  I'll need to take a close up of the quilting so you can see how well it helps me quilt.

Thanks to Barbara H. for letting me borrow her photos since I forgot my camera.