Excerpt: Silk Eggs: A Dear Jane Mystery

Then my mind drifted to my quilt and I wondered what different blocks Jane Stickle might have designed had she lived in Australia. Surely she would have pieced one of her corner diamonds to represent the constellation ‘The Southern Cross’. I’ll never forget the moment when I was standing on a roadside on Mount Ruapehu in New Zealand and I looked up and saw the stars. I didn’t know what I was looking for, but I knew the moment I spied that constellation. I knew what I was seeing. Wow, one view I will never forget. Jane could have changed the upper right corner triangle and added two more stars to depict ‘the Southern Cross’. Since I want to maintain the integrity of my quilt by staying faithful to Jane, there are two other blocks that could stand in. Block A-4 Courtney’s Stethoscope has plain triangles to the top, bottom, and left and right sides with a cross in the middle. A second choice could be H-7 Bennington Star with its four quarter triangle blocks in the twelve, three, six and nine o’clock positions. I will definitely have to find orange fabric with tiny stars to use when I piece those blocks.