Evolution of a Quilt

I have an Accuquilt "Go!" cutter. It's a fabric die cut machine, which advertises that using their system allows the quilter to cut fabric pieces for a quilt faster and with more precision, yielding better end results.   I've used it a bit, but in my mind, not enough. Just over 2 years ago I decided to make a quilt that came in a book accompanying the machine. The quilt was called “My Road to Oklahoma”. It was designed by Eleanor Burns. Eleanor is a master quilter and was the TV host of a show called "Quilt in a Day". This is an image I found on the Internet showing this particular quilt. 

I used the appropriate dies to cut some of the fabric and began piecing pieces together. I laid out some blocks on my design wall, experimenting with the colors and shapes I had cut. As I progressed, I decided I didn't really care for the quilt layout. 

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However, some of the blocks on the diagonal lines reminded me of a pattern that is sometimes called the Chandelier Quilt. 

Picture from the Internet

 I had selected bright fabric so why not let it shine as a chandelier! 

I laid out what I had cut, using a 4-patch block instead of the larger square in the quilt design and stared at it a bit. I also had made up some of the 4-patch star blocks (sometimes called a scrappy star or a sawtooth star). The chandelier quilt didn't have that block in it...but if it is a chandelier...it could have some brighter lights! 

I placed some of the stars randomly among the 'string of lights' in the chandelier. 

All of this was happening around this time that I visited the New England Quilt Museum in Lowell, MA. While enjoying the quilts on display I struck up a conversation with two other women. One of them turned out to be Marianne Hatton who wrote a book called “Simply Dynamic Sampler Quilts”. Although the book is out of print, I was able to locate one a few weeks later and loved it. Marianne describes the process for making a sampler quilt with different types of blocks, ie showcasing a 'sample' of quilt blocks. Unlike most sampler quilts, Marianne suggested varying the size of the blocks to add interest to the quilt. 

I decided to apply that idea and created a large star within a star within a star, and added that to a 'string of lights' in the quilt. The quilt is now on my long arm, ready to be quilted. 

I find it interesting to see how this quilt changed from my first idea to the final product. It really was an evolutionary process....but was it the quilt that evolved, or the quilter, herself?!