Fellow Quilters,

Happy August!  We are officially past the mid-point of summer.  While the days are still sunny and warm, the nights are starting to get cooler as the days slowly get shorter.  I find that August also has windier days than July – not sure why.  The blackflies of early summer are now gone and the mosquitoes are slowly dwindling.  This makes for some lovely evenings for star-gazing.  I am fortunate to live in a rural area where there is very little ambient light at night – on a clear night, Hubby and I can find some of the constellations, such as the Big Dipper.  Did you know that this constellation is not visible from the southern hemisphere?  Their main constellation is the Southern Cross.

So, the theme of this month’s Quilt Block Mania is Night Sky (quite apropos, I think).  I recall that, last Fall, there was a rare widespread phenomenon of Northern Lights or Aurora Borealis that could be seen from many parts of Canada and quite a few northern states.  This was especially noteworthy because the lights were not the usual white ones – they were multicolored.  While I have seen white Northern Lights several times, I have seen the colored ones only once.  Every time last Fall that they were one display, we had overcast skies and I was not able to see them – I’m hoping they appear again this Fall and I have better luck.

For my QBM block, I recreated the colored Aurora Borealis that I saw many years ago, using a bargello format.

My Aurora Borealis block design

You can download my Aurora Borealis block pattern here.

Northcott has had a few collections over the years that feature the stunning colors of Northern Lights.  The newest one is Dancing Lights, shipping next February and you can see it here.  I substituted the 6 shades used in my block with a big chunk of these fabrics – here are 2 blocks with 2 of the fabrics from the collection. 

There are 9 other designers participating this month – here are the links to their patterns for this Night Sky theme.

Twin Stars by Carolina Moore
Double Star Quilt Block
Zodiac by Inquiring Quilter
Friendship Star
Moon Phases by QuiltFabrication
Star Struck
Pinwheel Sky
Aurora Borealis by Patti’s Patchwork
Moon Over Mountains
A Moonbeam’s Wish

This post is short and sweet because I’m hard at work finishing up several new patterns and finalizing details for a couple of projects/events that I can’t share yet.  I just might do a 2^nd post this month with deets on these plans.  If you’re not yet a subscriber, please head to the right sidebar and hit the subscribe button.

Are you on Instagram?  I was at #lazysummerquiltcamp for the month of July, hosted by counselor Leanne of Devoted Quilter.  Each day we posted pics based on her prompts – what a wonderful celebration of all things quilty.  You can search the #lazysummerquiltcamp hashtag to see all the great posts, and pop onto my pattispatchwork page to see my posts and a sneak peek into my many years of quilts, including a peek at my sewing space.

Thanks for reading,

Patti