Stars Aligned New Pattern Release!

Today is Canada Day, but this year I am having mixed feelings about celebrating the year white people made part of what some Indigenous peoples call Turtle Island into Canada, sticking the land's Indigenous peoples on reservations, and harming them in many horrifying ways, the effects of that treatment still lived and felt today. (See an update at the end of this post - great minds, or greater minds than mine...)

So. Today I am thinking of the 150 Canadian women represented below, many European, but lots of Indigenous ones and some Black as well, whose accomplishments I am forever in awe of, and whose quilt I still haven't finished (but it's going to go on Q3FAL list).

I do not profess to be in this league, but I think it is a good day, first day of the month, first day of the second half of the year, to release my newest pattern. I am super-excited about this one. Stars are my favourite block, and I created this design last year in the #30quiltdesignschallenge. It truly is remarkable how many of the designs in our group over the three years I hosted it have been published. They've appeared in ezines, fabric company catalogues, print magazines, and have been self-published. Mine was in Benartex's Modern by the Yard ezine and now I am able to release it!

The centre column of stars interlocks, and the half stars on the sides are mirror images of each other, but offset.

There is lots of negative space for fun quilting. I did an overall leaf meander with echoes. I quilted a framed ribbon candy border around all four edges of the quilt that weaves under the star points. The stars got some fancy FMQ.

Dayna photographed it for me under her beautiful cherry tree. 

The quilt is living with her until the border between Canada and the US reopens, which both she and my husband think won't happen until 2021... Benartex sent it to her house, as I told them let her enjoy it for a bit. However, she has a feline quilt lover in her family too!

Harper, another quilt-loving cat

Many thanks to Yvonne at Quilting Jet Girl for her tech-editing skills. 😊 To celebrate the release, Stars Aligned is on sale for 20% off in my Etsy shop, Sandra Jane Quilts, until Sunday.

I am working with some beautiful brand new fabric by Nancy Halvorsen called Better Not Pout, for an upcoming Benartex Christmas in July blog hop, and, though I am not making my hop quilt in this pattern, I thought it would be fun to see what it would look like in this fabric.

Lots of possibilities... I could see having the centre column in an ombré effect as well, now that I look at that last one!

Update: Brianne sent me a note first thing this morning to be sure to read ALL of Gillian Harris's Instagram stories. I follow her, and love the heck out of her, but for whatever reason (algorithms) Instagram rarely has her stories appear in my feed. Well, a couple of kleenex and lots of tears for hearing someone speak and do what is in my heart but I didn't know how/WHAT to do, here is what Gillian did, and challenged all of us who live on this stolen land originally known as Turtle Island, now called Canada and United States and Mexico, to do:

Do you want to know whose land you are living on? Go to https://native-land.ca It isn't just for the Canadian section of Turtle Island, but it is for the global Indigenous peoples' lands, all those stolen. It's quite sobering when you look at the map, how much land, and cultures with it, whites have stolen. Also be sure to check out Jillian Harris's stories on Instagram for much more information and how she came to be doing this, using her platform to educate and to start to right centuries of wrongs.