Houston Class #4 - Bent Star with Gyleen X Fitzgerald

I first became acquainted with Gyleen Fitzgerald through a sew along on Facebook.  She was guiding us through a mystery stash buster called Bricks, Cobblestones and Pebbles, which she subsequently published in book form. It is a really cool pattern and is a great way to use up some of your scraps.  
So when I saw her on the class program at Houston, I jumped at the chance to meet her in person. I wasn't disappointed. She is a dynamo!

Her class, Bent Star, was a class in which we learned some piecing techniques including how to handle set in seams. My first challenge was fabric choice - I loved her colors and wanted the same bold impact without being a copy cat. I was able to find darker and lighter tone on tone fabrics in 4 different colors - fuscia, teal, green, and brick.  I chose two shades of brown for the small kite shapes. I think it looks sort of 3-D because of the light/dark values of the same colors.
I started with a dark blue for the background, but the teal blocks just faded away. Since I really wanted the star to pop, I tried several light greys before finally settling on this very light grey.


Gyleen quilted hers with straight lines and angles. Not feeling quite up to so many absolutely STRAIGHT lines, I decided to do come gentle curves - all going horizontally across the quilt.  I'm pretty pleased with the results. It makes a very stunning wallhanging.
Check out Gyleen's stuff!