Vintage Tuesday #4

Pink Spider Looking at the Stars
Pink Spider Looking at the Stars

Pink Spider Looking at the Stars is the first quilt I ever finished.* Note the word “finished.” I started my Sampler quilt and got to the quilting point and then stopped. Hand quilting was the order of the day and hand quilting takes a long time.  I was a UFO girl from day one.

Pink Spider Looking at the Stars was the result of a challenge in the small quilt group I belonged to at the time. We were given pieces of all (or most, maybe) of the fabrics and had to make something. These quilts were displayed at an EBHQ show in the early 1990s, or, perhaps 1989. Again, I don’t remember.

Pink Spider Looking at the Stars - detail
Pink Spider Looking at the Stars – detail

I don’t have any good photos of the quilt, but the quilt is around here somewhere, so I could take some if I were motivated to do so.

One thing you might notice is that the design is insane. I made this piece with templates. I didn’t have a rotary kit at the time, though I think I may have bought one shortly thereafter.

You might also notice all of those mitered corners on the binding. The binding was a pain, I have to admit. Most of the time now I keep my quilts square so as to avoid mitered corners. I subscribe to the notion that if you don’t know you can’t do something, then you can do it. Nota bene: hanging out in space without a space suit is the exception.

From an early quilt age, I could do Y-seams, which is why I know you can do them. Although these are 6 rather than 8-pointed stars, there are a lot of Y-seams. I had done an 8-pointed star in my sampler class and figured 6 would be similar or easier.

Seeing this quilt might give you a clue as to why my hackles raise a bit when I see Half Square Triangles classified as “intermediate”. HA!

 

 

 

 

*Vintage is a little bit of an exaggeration, but I am using it to denote old stuff in this series of posts