Luminescence Defined

My Lipari Cosmic Star is complete.  Prepare yourselves for this stunning transformation. A couple of weeks ago I shared this photo:

I let you know that my friend Janet of WhatComesNext? was busy working her free-motion feather magic on the quilt.  We spoke briefly about the quilting, but I let Janet know that I trusted her and wanted her to enjoy the process.  I've seen enough of Janet's work to know this quilt was in very capable hands!  I knew it would be amazing. I knew it would be awesome. I'm just not sure I knew it was going to be so ridiculously, perfectly, mindblowing.  Even if feathers are not your cup of tea, you cannot deny that this quilting literally, and figuratively, makes the quilt.  Check this out:

Other bloggers have written how difficult it is to capture the true luminescence of shot cottons, and especially the Liparis which are shot with black thread. They behave like silk in natural light and bounce a lot of light. I upped the contrast and saturation a bit on that photo above to best highlight the quilting for you.  Here are some close ups of Janet's beautiful work.

The central design was over-stitched with a silver metallic thread.

As you can see, I bound the quilt with the same tone on tone black batik as the background because I didn't want any attention drawn away from that star. Here's a shot of the back so you can have an idea of all the stitching and see how perfectly it is distributed. That is a hanging sleeve you see across the top.

I feel like my role in this quilt was pretty small actually, so I'm going to take a few lines to shout out my appreciation to everyone involved. Thank you to Lynne and Michael Oakshott for the opportunity to sew with these gorgeous cottons. I did use Mary Ellen's Best Press prior to cutting out those big wedge-shaped pieces and the oakshotts held the bias edge beautifully.  These cottons press crisp and retain their sheen!  Thank you Tracey for your easy-to-piece pattern that I will definitely make again. And thank you Janet, for taking this small quilt to stratospheric heights with your incredible quilting skills.