How should I quilt a night sky?

[Dawn S.]

I am working on a guild challenge quilt. I would show a picture of it, but the ladies in charge of the challenge follow TQS. One day a friend's mother says to me, "I'm so glad to meet you! I follow you on TQS!" So, I need to be a bit vague. The water and mountains are a no brainier when it comes to quilting them. But, I am stumped on how to quilt the night sky. The sky is probably close to 1/4 of the quilt.

I can email a picture to you or tell you more about the little quilt, if you need that in order to help with quilting ideas.

Thanks in advance!!!!!!

Dawn
In beautiful Northwest Montana

[Betty J.]

Dawn, If your night sky is all black or dark blue and you have added or will add stars (crystals, beads, embroidery, or some such), you might just want to do a tiny little stipple in black 100 wt silk and let the stars be highlighted. That's what I did on "Noel" see-quilts/quilt-gallery/ and the judges loved it. Additionally, you may wish to quilt in some "wind characters" here and there within your simple stippling to be discovered by people who look closely at your quilt. I sometimes do this. You can find these designs downloadable in Dover Pictura http://www.doverpictura.com/collection/0486991016. These have to be marked on your quilt first though and require slow careful stitching, but are really cool. I did this in my knight quilt, but it was a daytime sky. Still I think it would look cool in the night. I leave it to Margo or others for more traditional ideas on quilting. Look forward to pictures of the finished product.

[Betty J.]

Just yesterday, I saw a post on a fellow longarmer's blog showing how she did a night sky. Perhaps looking at her's will spark some ideas for you.

http://commonquilts.blogspot.com/

[Betty J.]

Well Dawn, knowing your love of bling, I am assuming you are going to put some glitz in the sky. I would be tempted to do asterisk type stitching with a shiny or metallic thread(probably by hand) and then put my crystal or bead in the middle.

[Dawn S.]

Michelle, I really do like that echo quilting in the night sky/cats quilt, and will keep it in mind for another quilt. (Her stars are wonderful.) My mountains will have similar echo quilting, so I hesitate to do too much more of it in this quilt.

BJ, I did check out both of the links you sent me to, and wrote you an email. (I love the idea of hidden designs in the sky.). And, the bling!

Ritzy, right on! There will be bling in the sky!

For right now I am thinking of maybe using Superior's MonoPoly thread, and a not too tight meaner stitching. I'm just hoping it doesn't become too textured. I guess I need to practice VERY loose meanders! I tend to work very small.

Dawn,
In beautiful Northwest Montana

[Lotti D.]

Whatever you decide to do, I'm looking forward to seeing the finished quilt! Sounding great!

[Betty J.]

Dawn, I have found oddly that closer smaller stippling shows up less than wider bigger stippling, in my humble opinion. So you may want to do a practice piece first just to see what works best.

[Dawn S.]

Thanks, BJ! I was wondering about that, myself! If I do a bigger stippling it will also be "puffier." I want it lay flat, with textured mountains on top of it, so don't want it puffy. Also, since quilting should remain fairly even throughout the quilt, the tighter stipple in the sky would probably work better. I always do a bit of practice with most of my threads, stitches, etc., just to be sure I like it! Learned that the hard way! :shock:

Dawn
In beautiful Northwest Montana