New Designs – Blazing Stars

Blazing Stars

Today I’m going to start a brief series on new designs, available now through the NordenCrafts online show to retailers, and hopefully coming soon to a local needlework shop near you.

Blazing Stars was inspired by an awesome quilt I saw at a stitching retreat. I couldn’t take my eyes off it, hanging in the dining room for every meal. The more I stared at it, the more I thought it would be wonderful stitched as a counted canvas design. So I began contemplating how I could recreate some of the feel of the quilt.

First, how to mimic the quilt squares and textures of fabric. As I thought about this, I decided that an overdyed or variegated thread would be the best option. I selected Caron Collection Watercolours, mostly because I didn’t want to have to lay threads. And I decided a little bit of sparkle would be appropriate for the night sky, and added Kreinik #8 braids. The design is accomplished with just 5 colors of Watercolours, 2 yellows and 3 blues, with matching colors of metallics.

Then I began thinking of how to create the “quilt squares”. To keep things simple, I used several 8 x 8 stitches or stitch composites, then laid them out in a grid. There are just 10 stitches in the design, repeated several times to form the pattern. The graph is in color to aid in placement of the different colors.

Now for the astronomy purists, let me assure you that I do know the difference between meteors, comets and stars! This large central motif is more comet-like than star-like, but the quilt pattern is called Blazing Stars so I went with it.

The size is not especially large, about 8″ x 10 1/4″ on 18 ct. Antique Blue canvas. It should stitch up fairly quickly. So if you love quilts and counted canvas, this design is for you!

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