I am really excited to show you this quilt. I think some of my excitement comes from the fact that I have just completely devoured the Liberated Quiltmaking book that I got for Christmas (though due to a cleaning-frenzy related hand injury, I have been pretty much laid up from sewing since Christmas — that’ll teach me to clean!). Anyhoo, after reading that book I am seeing so many lovely “liberated” details in this quilt, that I can’t wait to share!

This is yet another beauty from my Grandma Fluegge’s cellar, more than likely made by my prolific Great Grandma Roloff. All hand pieced and hand quilted. The background yellow fabric really pops, and all the stars are made up of mostly plaids and stripes. This is another of those slightly more “manly” looking quilts as a result, and I think it is just gorgeous!

Each of the center squares and each of the star points is pieced together of other smaller strips of fabric. Some of the center squares are oriented so that the smaller strips run vertically, and some are oriented so that the smaller strips run horizontally. There is no order to this — you’ll see one horizontal one, then two vertical, followed by two more horizontal, etc., in no discernible pattern. In addition, the strips are random widths and are sewed at whatever angle struck her fancy (or whatever angle was required based on the size and shape of the scrap of fabric). I love this lack of uniformity!

Two other things really remind me of Gwen’s book. One is that there are some “floating” points — places where she has used a fabric piece identical to or very similar to the background fabric that makes some of the points seem to “float” off by themselves. I’ve marked these on the photos at Flickr, so just click on either of the above photos to go to Flickr to see the annotated versions. The other is the irregular border. I didn’t quite get it all in the first shot, but the inner blue border is of multiple fabrics and you can just see on the top how it goes all the way to the left, cutting off the outer yellow border.

This little bit is one of my favorite spots on this quilt. Looks like she ran out of room at the edge and ended up having to cut off one of the points of her stars. C’est la vie! You can also see the odd shapes of some of the pieces in this close up.

The quilt is backed with a gorgeous blue fabric and bound with another plaid. The quilting is all-over fans (you can see it better if you click on the photo to go to Flickr and then select “All Sizes” to see the large version).

I have to say that this quilt really kind of has my head spinning (maybe that’s why I called it “Spinning Stars”?). So many wonderful little things to see. Makes me really wish I had access to these all the time so I could pull them out and look at them whenever I want!