Origami Oasis – Starry Migration Quilt

When I was originally designing Origami Oasis, I imagined it full of luscious colour, as I do just about all my work. Part way through the process Kathy Miller of Michael Miller suggested adding a black and white grouping, as many of the prints were so graphic. I was initially a little hesitant, but once I saw what they had in mind, I started to get pretty excited about getting my hands on some of it to start sewing. While I am not a black and white kind of person myself (I see the world in a gazillion shades of grey and a rainbow of colour, can usually see all points of view… I’d make a horrible judge, and rarely purchase black clothing for myself), I started to envision projects playing with the bold patterns, like playing with illumination and darkness.

This quilt is the very first project I envisioned when I finally saw the fabrics in person. I imagined herds of animals migrating across the open savannah on a starry night, with the sun just starting to show itself and colour the world at one edge.

I wanted their trail to almost disappear in areas, while being doubly strong in others.

A simple nine-patch with some half-square triangles inserted here and there makes for an easy-to-piece quilt. I used all the prints from the Starry Sky group as well as Fold and Spot, both in Starfruit, and Show Your Colors in Blue (though I fussy cut almost all the blue out of this one to showcase the golden-coloured zebras). I backed it with yardage of Fold in Starfruit and the binding is the happy, lighthearted Freckled.

I designed it as a baby quilt, but it could very easily be adapted to larger sizes. You can find the free quilt pattern on the Michael Miller website. Happy sewing!