Wednesday, July 1, 2020

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.



12 comments:

  1. Congrats on the release, Sandra. It's a good one! Happy Canada Day to you!

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  2. Congrats Sandra on the newest pattern release! Lots of possibilities and all that negative space!

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  3. That's a beautiful quilt, Sandra! Congratulations on your pattern release! I love the 150 Canadian Women quilt, too - just piecing all those blocks and putting them together into the quilt top is quite an accomplishment. I'll enjoy seeing you finish it! As for celebrating our countries' spotty history, to paraphrase Maya Angelou - now that we know better, we have to do better. I appreciate that you always make me think!

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  4. Congratulations no the pattern release, Sandra! It's always a pleasure working with you. :)

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  5. Love your quilt celebrating Canadian Women. It is gorgeous! And it is great that you can release the pattern on your own now.

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  6. OOOh, I like the idea of the ombre effect on the middle row of stars. Congratulations on your pattern release. I know the mixed feelings of celebrating that national holiday as ours is only days away. We really need to think about all the peoples that we, as white settlers, hurt. I look forward to seeing the progress on your quilt honoring Canadian women.

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  7. I just purchased this pattern. I’ve been hoarding Xmas fabric for a couple of years now and this is a perfect pattern to use some of this fabric. 🙏

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  8. Congrats on another pattern release & I did see it in Modern by the Yard & thought it lovely. Thanks for all the hard work you put into your pattern writing. Take care, stay safe & huggles.

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  9. You are so right about celebrating these days. Maybe its one of the benefits of COVID 19 that we are not having big celebrations this year and can take it as a year to begin the transition to recognizing our roles in the oppression fo those who were here before us, even as freedom was granted for others.

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  10. This is a great pattern. Congratulations.

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  11. Lovely pattern, congratulations and well done. I do like the way you turned the Canada Day celebration into a celebration of Canadian women, but that’s you, turning negatives into positives. Not that Canada Day is a negative of course, although in my opinion we are generations on, we are not responsible for the actions of our forebearers, but we can recognise their mistakes and wrongdoings. Have a wonderful celebration.

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  12. Thank you for reposting your ig story here, I tried to read it on instagram but it kept hopping off. I think so many of our countries have to review how we look at our past. A steep learning curve for us all. Hopefully the next generations will be educated differently. Certainly my generation was still taught the heroes of colonialism. Your quilt at Dayna's, its never lost what a friend gains as they say. And your star quilt, I just love it. I can see my making that in the future

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