There seems to be a garden theme to my quilts lately. But Silent Garden isn’t a reference to the Garden Gone Wild blocks having gone silent with no work being done even though that seems like it’s the case as I’m still dithering about how to set them and with what.

No, Silent Garden is a design in Willyne Hammerstein’s Millefiori Quilts 3 book and that is the perfect setting for 6-point kaleidoscope stars. And you know I’ve sewn countless kaleidoscope stars as I just cannot seem to get enough of them!

I knew there were going to be some Inklingo Silent Garden collections. The 3 cm Silent Garden Inklingo collection? I wasn’t thinking I’d make any use of that until I realized that the mauve and pink kaleidoscope stars were made using 1.25″ diamonds and the difference between a 1.25″ diamond and a 3 cm diamond is so small – less than 1/8th of an inch – that I knew I could make it work.

And it does.

The back after pressing.

It’s the 2″ Inklingo Silent Garden collection that I’m most excited about as that has led me to finish making the blue and brown stars which had sat for years and years because I didn’t like any of my setting options for them. Silent Garden is the perfect setting!

I’ve not got it sewn together yet, but these are the fabrics I’m almost sure I’m using. Almost. The little brown triangle may get replaced with a different blue for a couple of reasons, the largest of which is I just do not have much brown in my stash as it’s a colour I tend to avoid at all costs. Plus I’m thinking a different, lighter blue might be interesting. I’ll probably make one of each just to see what I think. And who knows? I may decide that background fabric is too busy and replace it as well.

The set of kaleidoscope stars that will really get shown well in the Silent Garden setting are the wild floral kaleidoscope stars. I spent an evening taking this apart and pressing the stars. I’m still sorting out what I want to use as the background fabric with them and what colours I’ll use for the large kite and small triangle. I love that I’ve now got a setting idea that will give them lots of room to sparkle and shine.

While I love the top I made with the butterfly stars, I can only begin to imagine how fabulously those stars would have been shown off to the best possible advantage with the Silent Garden setting.

And is it enough that I have three sets of kaleidoscope stars that I’m working with right now to set into quilt tops? Of course not! I’ve been looking at some of my fabrics, dreaming about how fabulously they’d work for fussy cutting/printing for more kaleidoscope stars. Clearly I’m hopeless when it comes to kaleidoscope stars.

“Quiet Garden”

This may be the best shot I’ve got of Jake’s eyes so far as this is by far closest to their real colour.

Even though it’s bitterly cold, our apartment is relatively warm but it is a bit cooler near the window. Baxter has spent a lot of time looking out on the roof garden the past couple of days so clearly the cold isn’t bothering him.

Happy and Healthy New Year to All!