Indian Star Progress to Date

This is a post about my "Indian Star" quilt.  I started this quilt while traveling in India with Jinny Beyer in November 2010.  I was trying to capture the colors and feel of what I saw.  The six pointed star was very prominent as was the marigold color.  The borders are from Jinny's collection.  Here is the to when I finished the top.

I then proceeded to hand-quilt.  I got all the diamonds quilted in the ditch.  I had been working on small parts and had not looked at the whole thing until I finished quilting the diamonds and laid it out to try to determine how I was going to quilt the negative space.  I realized I was not happy with it.  The star faded into the background.

This quilt may not be the most beautiful or the most difficult quilt I have done but it means so much to me because I completed many of the diamonds while traveling around India on the experience of a lifetime.   So.....I un-quilted the entire thing!  I then realized if I could bring out the star points the central star became more apparent.

 By replacing 4 of the points with yellow-gold, the star started to come out!  But it did not some out as much as I wanted.  I then decided to outline the central star with a stem-stitch.  I auditioned different #8 perle cotton-sparkly gold, regular gold color, yellow color and black.  I settled on the black.

2 diamonds outlined

A closer look

Up close and personal

The 2 diamonds took about 2 hours.  I am going to try to commit to at least an hour every evening while watching TV with my husband.  I am going to link in with Bonnie Hunter's "One Hour of Needle & Thread".  Hopefully it will keep me on track!  That doesn't mean I won't finish up on my Lotus Temple!  Just something to do in the evening when I sit with "my boyfriend" (he'll always be my boyfriend-even after 31 years!)

Happy Stitching!