Monday, January 17, 2011

Seeing Stars

The stars shine brightly in today's brilliant blue quilts by designer, quilter and author, Barbara Cline. Stars appear in nearly all of her quilts, including the lone star designs in her book, Star Struck Quilts. Barbara Cline's starry quilts remind us of a quotation by Mary C. Crowley, who said: "Every evening I turn my worries over to God. He's going to be up all night anyway."

Glowing Splendor, by Barbara H. Cline, at Delightful Piecing


"Glowing Splendor" can be seen in Barbara Cline's online gallery. Here we see a dimensional effect created by gradated blue fabrics that are pieced as hexagons, with 12-pointed stars in the centers. At the intersecting corners of the hexagons there are 3-pointed dimensional stars that look like the blades of a wind turbine.  The inner border of the quilt is formed by whirling pinwheels in five different blue hues, which are set in a tessellating pattern, as in Barbara Cline's Pinwheel Spin pattern.

Diamond Chain, 56 x 56" or 76 x 96", by Barbara Cline, at Delightful Piecing

The gradation of background fabrics from dark blue to white gives this quilt a beautiful dimensional effect.  The blue-black diamond chain running diagonally through the quilt creates an optical illusion, making it look as if the chain is moving!


The pattern for Diamond Chain is available at Delightful Piecing. Although the pattern appears to be complex, Barbara assures us that it is easy to piece when it is broken down into 10" blocks !

Image credits and links:  Images are shown with the generous permission of Barbara Cline.  She is the author of Star Struck Quilts - Dazzling Diamonds & Traditional Blocks, published by C&T Publishing.  Fittingly, the Amazon.com reviewers of "Star Struck Quilts" all gave it five stars !

10 comments:

  1. What a delight to see my sisters quilts displayed here on your blog. I love all the inspiration I recieve from visiting here.

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  2. I'm in heaven with all these blue quilts, just lovely.

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  3. I am truley struck by the brilliance of the stars.
    June Flory

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  4. Gorgeous quilts. I really look forward to your posts.

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  5. Lovely! I love the color blue. I love stars. and I love snowflakes which that first quilt reminded me of.

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  6. Thank you, Julia! We're always amazed by the endless amount of beautiful, inspiring quilts that we find to post on the blog.

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  7. Thank you, Pip ! Monochromatic blue quilts do indeed seem to have a lovely celestial aura about them.

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  8. Anonymous, thank you ! We think that the color blue lends itself exceptionally well to quilting patterns of stars and snowflakes.

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  9. Thank you, Munaiba ! We have such a fun time writing this blog and finding new ( and numerous !) quilts to feature.

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  10. Ann Marie, thank you ! We too are enchanted by the elegant symmetry of stars and snowflakes.

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We love reading each and every comment... thanks for visiting our blog!

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