Dark Star

Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy. Since beginning this practice at the end of my sophomore year of college, I've found it to be so necessary and rejuvenating. For six days, I work, and on the seventh I rest [or in my case, sew]. One interesting side effect, however, of working on my quilt-based senior show is that, although I still sew on Sundays, it's not the same kind of rest.

In light of that, I took the whole weekend off of sewing and drove up to northern Wisconsin with some of my friends to chill at HoneyRock Camp. With just a small amount of elbow grease washing dishes after meals, we had full run of the camp. Now, after an hour and a half of tubing, over six miles of cross-country skiing, and a late night snow shoe across the lake, I feel ready to tackle the week. Exhausted, limber, and invigorated, I can look back at last week's sewing and look forward at the coming week's 'without fear of the days to come' (Proverbs 31:25).

This past Thursday I cut, pieced, and pressed an entire Dark Star block. It was patterned after Maura Ambrose's Dark Star quilt. I have long been inspired by her and even forayed into natural fabric dyes for several months while exploring where my senior show might go. This hand-dyed quilt that I pieced last winter was also inspired by her. I didn't intend for the dark star colors to be quite so similar, but I guess that's what happens when I'm working in coral and navy and the original was black and red. By the suggestion of my senior show advisor, I added a little pop of mint. It's tough to see here, but one of the white arrows is actually a lovely seafoam. It adds some fun to the traditional and somber quilt, and I'm excited to see the mint pop up elsewhere in the show.

Linking up to Work-In-Progress Wednesday again over at FreshlyPieced. Head over for some other inspiring projects in the works.