I belong to an art quilt group called Around The World In Twenty Quilts, which can be accessed via my sidebar "other blogs". We have a quarterly challenge to make a small approximately 8" X 11" size or A4 as the Netherlands/Australian and UK folks call it. One member picks a challenge theme and we have a few months to produce it. The first challenge was Trees seen below this post, and this one is Stellar. Be sure to go to the ATWI20Q site to see all of quilts. You will be glad you did.
I enjoyed making this small quiltlet using Angelina fibers which I hand felted using a four needle hand punch I bought last summer. This was my first time felting using it and the fibers. The black background fabric is fleece. I free motion top stitched and hand embroidered french knots. I sewed on tiny red beads and some larger circular flat beads that I picked up at the bead store for the adjoining stars. The binding is a black satin ribbon. It is within the challenge size of A4.
I based my quilt on this information and photo found on line: Emission nebula NGC 604 lies in a spiral arm of galaxy M33, 2.7 million light-years away in the constellation Triangulum. This is a site where stars are being born. Though such nebulae are common in galaxies, this one is particularly large, nearly 1,500 light-years across. At the heart of NGC 604 are over 200 hot stars, much more massive than our Sun (15 to 60 solar masses). They heat the gaseous walls of the nebula making the gas fluoresce. Their light also highlights the nebula's three-dimensional shape, like a lantern in a cavern. The image was taken on January 17, 1995 with Hubble's Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2.
CREDIT: Hubble Space Telescope, photo PR96-27B
SOURCE: http://grin.hq.nasa.gov/BROWSE/gallaxies_3.html
COPYRIGHT: This photo is not copyright.
