Among brilliant yellow stars and blazing comets, the dark star shows that brightness cannot be bright without a contrasting darkness. And though it doesn’t shine with bold yellow light, a dark star is still a star.
The Inspiration and Making of Crochet Comets
At our 2015 Dublin Rippers quilting retreat, my friend Donna challenged us. She had a black plastic bag full of fabric. We had to close our eyes and reach into the bag. We had until the next retreat to make something from the fabric we drew from the bag. She said we could make anything we wanted. It didn’t have to be a quilt.
My fabric was a tiny print in dark gray and white that gave an overall impression of gray. It reminded me of the night sky.
Weren’t there a couple of yellow and white doilies in my collection at home that might make good comets? I went home to my doily collection and, yes! There they were.
To get an idea of scale, I photographed the doilies and the gray fabric, plus some yellow fabrics that I planned to use for the comet tails. I used Adobe Photoshop Elements to digitally build the wall hanging, cutting and pasting the images of doilies and fabric.
I put several stars in the sky, just to give me an idea of how they would look. In the real wall hanging, I would use more stars and they would be a lot fancier. And I’d sew on a bunch of buttons as smaller stars.
Photoshop Elements has a tool for drawing boxes and circles and, hey—stars! I clicked on the star shape and dragged the first one. It was black, because I forgot to change to a more appropriate color. The next stars were yellow.
The sketch was pretty rough, but it served its purpose. I could tell that the quilt would have to be about five feet wide to give the doily comets and their tails enough room.
I started laying out the quilt top, stopping only to buy a length of fabric to go between the dark earth and the lighter sky. As I worked and laid out the doilies and houses and moon, I got a feeling. It was definitely located in my chest. It was a feeling of inevitability that seemed to squeeze my heart.
The feeling was that the sketch might be rough, but it was perfect the way it was. Any attempt to improve on it wouldn’t be an improvement at all. I came to know this as I worked.
So the quilt is as close to the sketch as possible. I did fancy up the comet tails with buttons and beads, but the sky is plain except for the appliqued yellow stars and one black star.
The back is made from scraps, many of which were giveaways from my quilting friends. It is quilted in mostly parallel, curving lines. That took a long time.
This was my first mostly-fabric quilt, and I learned a lot. It is also the biggest quilt I have made so far.
Crochet Comets is on display at the Rocky Mountain Quilt Museum in Golden, Colorado, until April 23, 2017. Starting July 1, 2017, it will be part of the Celebrate Doilies exhibit, debuting in Stephenville, Texas, at the Cross Timbers Fine Arts Council River North Gallery.