Oxymoron Quilt Top

What to name a quilt?  Sometimes it’s easy, sometimes hard, sometimes perfect, and sometimes I settle on something rather boring.  While looking through photos of this quilt top, I kept thinking of names like “Wholly Separate” or “Divided and United”.  It occurred to me that in seeking a name for a quilt about duality, I was thinking in oxymorons.  And so, this is my Oxymoron quilt top.

I make a lot of lone star quilts.  If log cabin blocks are like comfort food to my heart, then lone star blocks are how my heart sings.  I have made many of them, and I’m sure there will be more.  Every time I make one, I play a little game.  When my large diamonds are all pieced, I play with layout, turning them back and forth to decide which end should be the center of the star.  Every time I do it, I tell myself that someday I’ll sew a lone star together in halves, with each half opposite of the other.  Well, I’ve now done it. (Actually, I’ve done it twice now – this was the first.) And guess what?  I LOVE IT!  Like my heart, IT SINGS.

I’m exploring the duality in our lives with this Oxymoron quilt top.  The way things are good and bad, hard and exhilarating, heartbreaking and lifegiving.  So often it’s the same thing which, at various times, brings extreme highs and lows.  And while we’d like to do without the lows, we can’t really get rid of them without also eliminating really good things.  So it all comes together, this mortal life of opposites at work in us and on us.

I set the star on the diagonal instead of top/bottom, to convey the way both anchor important space in our development.  I actually did this a long time ago, and then set it aside to think about what should be next.  Currently, one area I’m trying to expand my creativity is through using fabric in ways that allow it to take center stage in simple ways.  I had thought I would need a deep dive creatively to finish this quilt. I realized, however, that I could convey meaning just as effectively through well-chosen prints.  So that’s what I set out to do.

Every print I selected for borders in the Oxymoron quilt top was used in at least two colorways.  The fabrics here are both old and new, and feature designers such as Victoria Findlay Wolfe (first border and one of my all-time favorite prints), Anna Maria Horner (large scallop border and small cathedral windows prints), Carolyn Gavin (narrow colorful borders) and Kaffe Fassett (that regimental ties fabric is genius and I love it SO MUCH).

This quilt won’t be made into a pattern.  If you want to try something similar, check out my Lone Star Tree Skirt Pattern.  I used the star in that pattern to make this one, but sewed it into a square instead of an octagon.  And obviously, it’s not a tree skirt.

This is a “me” quilt, and I feel almost unreasonably happy about it.  These are the projects that completely light me up inside.  Today is actually my birthday, and I’m very grateful to have finished this.  I’m grateful to be where I am in my journey.  So grateful to be making art!  Have a blessed day!