Astronomical Quilt at the Houston Festival

For those of you who are just tuning in,

during her time on the International Space Station,
Astronaut Karen Nyberg hand-peiced a very cool star block...

... and then invited all of us quilters everywhere to contribute our own star-themed blocks to be combined with hers into a big global community space quilt to be displayed at the International Quilt Festival in Houston! (<3 <3 <3 <3 <3) If you haven't yet, you must watch the video invite.

In the end
the project received 2,260 blocks! 
They had to make 28 panels to fit them all!
How fabulous is THAT!

To my extreme delight, they chose to put my block in the main panel (of the 28)
just a few blocks over from Karen Nyberg's! (When I found this out, I pretty much squealed and ran around my apartment like a little kid.)

Here's Astronaut Nyberg at the festival with the finished piece!

Astronaut Karen Nyberg with the completed Astronomical Quilt!

This picture makes me grin so big, I can't even deal with it! :) 

Astronaut Nyberg's block is the red white and blue one in the center, and mine is just to the right..
well, mine looks like this:

more deets/pictures here

I really wish I could've gone to visit the festival, and seen all 28 panels, but sadly that just wasn't in the cards for me. 

Luckily, my friends Emily Klainberg and Deborah Bingham were in attendance, and were kind enough to send me some pictures! (Thanks so much you guys!!!)

There's my block! And there's Astronaut Nyberg's!!!

all-over star quilting in the mix

Furthermore

the festival posted a gallery on the website of 48 of the Astronomical Blocks along with the correspondence that accompanied them. There are some really amazing letters and stories - you gotta check it out! I can't recommend enough!

Here are a few of my favorites:

This one is by Ilana Spanier. 

The seven points commemorate the 7 astronauts of the Columbia Space Shuttle.

Astronomical Block by Ilana Spanier

This one is by Dana Saxon, PhD, it's the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram! So cool!

Astronomical Block by Dana Saxon, PhD

This next one is by Marianne LaFarge. I love the view of Spain!

Astronomical Block by Marianne LaFarge

And this last one is by Jan Meredith in honour of her father who worked on instrumentation on Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo.

Astronomical Block by Jan Meredith

There are really a lot more. You've just gotta check out the gallery and read the letters. Very cool. 

Once again, I'm so glad that I got to contribute to this project. 

Space exploration and the amazing explorers who do the exploring are a great source of inspiration to me. When I made my block, I felt like I was writing a thank-you letter for that, and I'm sure that's true for most, if not all, of the 2,260 quilters who participated. 

Thanks for reading!

All the best,

Reyna

Astronaut-Quilter Karen Nyberg sewing aboard the ISS <3

Portrait of the Astronaut as a Young Girl

I did it!
I finished it!
(If you don't know what I'm talking about..)

Just as I imagined, it was completed at the very last minute - specifically, 3am the night before it had to go in the mail. I was working on a film all day, so actually my ever-so-helpful sweetheart partner David had to overnight the block for me. (Thanks David! <3)

I call it 'Portrait of the Astronaut as a Young Girl'
(9" finished)

My block for Karen Nyberg's Astronomical Quilts Block Challenge

I call it 'Portrait of the Astronaut as a Young Girl'

(9" finished)

The title is meant to be open to interpretation: perhaps it's our quilter/astronaut/heroine Karen Nyberg as a young girl (hence the light-colored hair), or perhaps this is the young stargazer who is destined to one day be the first human to set foot on Mars, or maybe it's all of us together, looking up at the great frontier.

Some details:

This block was all English Paper Pieced, and if my count is correct, there are 101 pieces.

It involved 17 different prints (2 skin-tones although you can't really tell), and something like 13 different colors of thread.

I have no idea how many hours it took, but I made it through more than one season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer during the process - that is, when I wasn't sewing on the subway. :)

Here's some pics from the process:

drafting the young astronaut and her star...

lines are all in!

this is the neck piece - easily the tiniest piece I've ever dared

tiny pieces, big mess

I called this section the Girl Zone - yes, I needed a big loan

sewing and Buffy - pretty much a perfect evening
(Dear Mallory and Erin, I usually have your art up on the wall, but both pieces fell recently,
and I'm working on a better hanging system - they live on my desk until then)

I took this picture at 3am when all of the pieces finally came together!
but I fell asleep before I could get the basting out

all the pieces out! all 101 of them

I'm so glad that I had the opportunity to participate in this project, and that I got this complicated block done on time! So many of my projects go unfinished, or end up taking years and years to complete. It could be just the magic of having a deadline that made this possible, or the fact that this is a bit smaller than most of my projects, but mostly I think that I was driven to make this block because I LOVE space exploration sooo much, and this felt like a small way to participate. I realize that I also sort of think of it as a thank-you letter to all the space explorers out there for doing what they do. I believe in my heart that space exploration will help drive human evolution toward a brighter future, and I can't wait to see what happens next!

Thanks for reading!

Big love!

-Reyna

Karen Nyberg, Ultimate Hero (also: my own personal Space Race)

First of all, in case you're totally out of the loop, and don't know about Karen Nyberg yet, let me fill you in rull quick:
She's an astronaut! AND... a quilter!!
So basically I file her under "Ultimate Hero" in my book.
(I love space exploration so much it hurts!)

During her time onboard the International Space Station, she hand-pieced a star block, and now she's invited all of us (that means YOU) to send in our own star-themed blocks to be combined with hers into one big global community space quilt!

I'm SO excited!

The completed quilt will be displayed at the 40th Annual International Quilt Festival 2014.

The MUST WATCH video:

Okay!

Here's the official announcement with all the important details!

You will notice that the deadline for entry is on August 1st, so I'm really posting about this VERY late. But it is not too late! Drop everything and get sewing!!

Even I will be cutting it very close. Despite the fact that I've had this project on my calendar for 6 months, as with everything, I will be scrambling to get it done at the last minute.

To be fair, I've done a lot of brainstorming and drafting in all that time! And perhaps having had all this time to brainstorm and draft is what has gotten me into trouble, because I have dreamed up a quite complicated 9 inches. I might be in over my head, and the clock is ticking!
It is my own personal Space Race, and so far, I've enjoyed every minute!!!

Here's a look at what I'm dealing with:

Ms Nyberg is certainly right about zip lock bags! So far, my nine-inch block involves twelve of them, and I'm not even in space!

Tiny stars... :)

Get sewing!
Thanks for reading!
-Reyna