ta done

the last time that i wrote about Mother Earth Father Sky was march 16, 2017

sheesh - that's almost three years ago!!!

i'd managed to piece two rays

with four to go...

fast forward to whenever this fabric:

Hoffman Digital Out Of This World Earth Panel 

arrived on the scene 

and i knew without even seeing it in Real Life that 

even if i had no idea where else to go with the front

i'd found the backing for Mother Earth Father Sky

so i ordered the panel and some coordinating space fabric...

appliqued (shudder) a moon for the name...

and put the backing together...

and i gave myself a deadline 

by embroidering an end date on the moon...

which, of course, meant that it was past time to work on those rays...

so i finished the final four and added some black fabric around them...

and found myself stuck again...

it looked more like a Black Hole swallowing up Mother Earth

than like Father Sky...

so i paper-pieced a full moon...

which was a bit better...

but not enough...

maybe the Solar System? 

but how was i gonna manage to show Mercury and Venus in that little space between the Sun and Mother Earth without using the dreaded A word?!? 

(that's Applique, not the other dreaded A word)

what to do?!? what to do?!? what to do?!?

BUTTONS!!!

so Melissa helped me find buttons for the other eight planets 

cuz in THIS home, Pluto is still a planet

using USPS stamps as a reference...

we laid them out where they oughta go and 

i marked the different places with the names for each planet

 and embroidered those names

so that i would know where to sew on the buttons after it came back from Liz (the most wonderful of all longarm quilters EVER) ...

and then decided that it was still gonna need more of sumpin'...

what to do?!? what to do?!? what to do?!?

CONSTELLATIONS!!! COMETS!!!

which meant RESEARCH!!!

and more embroidery...

and lots and lots of shopping at all the local Joann stores to find enough tiny white star buttons to add after quilting 

the white stars were in packages with red stars and blue stars 

and now i have a whole lotta red and blue star buttons taking up space in the Great Pile of Stuff

till i had this...

there is no up in Space

and i spread it out so everyone could see how wonderful it was

only to hear

What ARE those?!?

and 

Are those SUPPOSED to be TEEPEES?!?

sigh

what to do?!? what to do?!? what to do?!?

hearths? yeah, hearths would leave no doubt that those are teepees...

so i searched and searched and searched for affordable campfire buttons

and came up empty-handed... 

back to the embroidery hoop...

hearth fires - that's gotta be teepees, right?!?

and then i decided that enough is enough
and sent it off to Liz to be quilted...

which she did, awesomely!!!

when Mother Earth Father Sky came back from its journey to Michigan 

it was time to trim and bind...

and sew on a gazillion buttons...

and become...

Ta Da!!!

Ta Done!!!

a quilt with so many sharp little star buttons that no one will ever be able to snuggle under it without looking like they've been chased through the briar patch...

and maybe it's okay for some quilts to be just for lookin' at
and not for sleepin' under...

Good design is like a refrigerator—when it works, no one notices, but when it doesn’t, it sure stinks. 
Irene Au