This is December and I don’t really make holiday art.  But we are coming up on the longest night of the year, so, I decided to use a piece I made called “Midnight Garden.”  

Midnight Garden  36” x 24” – $150

To create this quilt, I bought fabric with a big printed design (below); enough to get the same design 7 times.  

I cut between the designs and then stacked up 6 of them.  I used pins to make sure the designs were precisely lined up.  Then I cut triangles through all 6 layers.  I’ve indicated (in wobbly pink triangles) three of the triangles I cut.  Because you stack up fabric and then cut through the layers, it is called a “stack and whack” quilt.

Now I had 6 triangles that were exactly the same.  I made them into octagons.  Below you can see how the three sections I marked in pink above came together as octagons.

Putting the octagons together so that they created an appealing piece was a fun challenge.  Some of the triangles had to be put together differently to fit them in. 

Go back and look at my finished piece.  See all the octagons?  And the original design is in there, too.  I think it looks like stars, holiday lights and fireworks, all things we see in December. 

Happy Holidays!

Joy