As so often happens, this design evolved as I was working on it. I didn't imagine it as a holiday-adjacent design at first, but I thought it so closely resembled a poinsettia that I leaned into that theme when naming it. Of course, it doesn't have to be used for Christmas, holiday, or winter-themed quilts, but I think it would work well for them.



The circles positioned between the star shapes made me think of a tufted cushion on a couch or a headboard—so much so that I was THISCLOSE to naming the design Hangin' Tuft. This would have been funny, but it made little sense—as if this had stopped me before.



I also started with just the inside star shape between the circles, but I couldn't leave all that space between the motifs, so I employed some echoing to help fill in the gaps and enhance the curves.





I'm much more happy with the evenly balanced result. Echoing almost always "works" whether you are hand-guiding and need to travel to a different part of the quilt, or in a pantogra...