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Quilt Notes:
AURORA STARS first appeared in print in Nancy Cabot's column in the Chicago Tribune, February 26, 1936. The name probably refers to the Aurora Borealis. According to the Wikipedia article, the "aurora" phenomenon is a natural light display in the sky particularly in the high latitude (Arctic and Antarctic regions), caused by the collision of energetic charged particles with atoms in the high altitude atmosphere.
Quilt patterns have hidden organizational properties to do with their geometry, and they surprise almost always when tiled (see below), resulting in the recombination of new geometric elements within the tessellation. In her notes on the design, Cabot says:
"The beauty of quilts is impossible to visualize merely by glancing at one block. AURORA STARS is just such a pattern."
AURORA STARS is included in Jinny Beyer's QUILTER'S ALBUM (p.132-9) with a variation of dark and light, and somewhat more complex than the Cabot rendering. The Beyer compendium includes separate piecing grids, along with the color illustrations, and is very faithful in that regard.
Interesting, how often quilt designs express astrological themes, a seeming unending diversity of suns and stars, planets, moons, auroras, meteors, galaxies, comets and constellations !! Perhaps it all derives from the exquisite, iconic mystery of quilt geometry itself!! Read more at MYSTIC STAR.
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AURORA STARS
