HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

I wish all the best for my family and friends in 2011!  The hustle and bustle of the holidays are now over and we can now settle down to the normal routines of life.  January and February, here in New England, can be very snowy and cold.  We survived a major blizzard last week in Connecticut, which dumped about 17" of snow!  However, as I'm writing this, the sun is shining and the temperature could possibly reach the 50's!!  We are now experiencing a steady melting of the snow.  I can actually see large patches of my lawn!!

During the blizzard I was finishing up on my latest barn quilt.  After completing my last one, Christmas Star, I wanted to continue that idea and create barn quilts with Holiday themes.  Naturally, New Year's came to mind.  I researched quilt patterns with a New Year's theme on the Internet and came up with only one.  I didn't care for the block design that I found and, unable to find any others, I decided to use the pattern.  The result was the block pattern you see here. 

 

The quilt pattern that I found on the Internet used the same colors that I used.  However, they used a darker purple.  Initially, I wasn't thrilled with the pattern.  At first I thought it was just a collection of triangles set in a loose type pattern, until I took a closer look.  As you look at the pattern, a star appears.  How cool was that I thought! 
I wanted to make the star a focal point in the block and played around with different colors to make the star stand out more.  The more that I played with the design, the less thrilled I was with the outcome.  I decided to leave the original colors as they were, but, use a lighter purple.  I was happy with the results.
After I took this photo, I happened to hang the board 'On Point' and was amazed, like I did with the Christmas Star, at the subtle change in the pattern.  I took two photo's 'On Point' hanging the board in two different positions.  As you can see, the opposite corners are slightly different.  Each position give the quilt pattern a different look!  The next two photo's reveal those differences.

 I have to admit that this pattern was fun to do.  Although there were only two colors involved, it was very time consuming with a lot of intricate taping between painting.  The added time though was well worth the effort.
Now that this one is done, I'm now planning on what to do next.  It will be much easier to plan out future designs and colors, because I received the Electric Quilts 7 computer software for Christmas.  No more pencil and graph paper!!