Hubcap Diamond Star Halo

Well, you're built like a car

You've got a hubcap diamond star halo

You're built like a car, oh yeah...

That song lyric was the inspiration for this quilt.  More specifically, it happened like this, as I related in my original post when I started this quilt way back in February 2012:

See, it all started as my husband and I were driving one day when the '70s classic T. Rex song, "Bang a Gong" came on the radio.  There are some strange lyrics in that song.  I wondered what the "teeth of the Hydra" or a "cloak full of eagles" had to do with anything, but more importantly, what a "hubcap diamond star halo" would look like.  My imagination went into overdrive.

"I want to make a quilt and call it Hubcap Diamond Star Halo," I told Norm while the song played on.  Talk about working backwards.  The name came first.

I knew it would have to have elements of '70s psycha-funka-delic style, and I probably just made that word up.  I was envisioning those bold, bright colors like Peter Max and H.R. Pufnstuf cartoons, and glam rocker and T. Rex front man himself, the late Marc Bolan.

You can read the rest of that post and see the video I made of the creation process.  Frustrating as it seemed at the time, in retrospect it was really pretty fun.

I finished the flimsy days later.  Days, people.  And then a couple years went by.  Years!  To quote the final line of "Bang a Gong," which Marc Bolan apparently borrowed from Chuck Berry:

Well, meanwhile, I'm still thinking....

Yep, thinking for like two years about how to quilt it (while doing a good job not thinking about it as well, as in not focusing on getting it done). Taking a fresh look at it earlier this year, I decided I had learned a couple things in the interim and was ready to tackle this particular UFO.  And so I did.

Well, you're windy and wild

You've got the blues in your shoes and your stockings 

You're windy and wild, oh yeah...

I ended up quilting the gentle arcs in the triangular prints with a walking foot.  Then I free motion quilted swirls and pebbles (mostly swirls) in the white space.

The fabric is from a fat quarter stack/quilt kit I found a few years ago at the thrift store, new in the box, marketed by Jo-Ann Fabric at some point in the not-too-distant past.  The binding is Alexander Henry's Heath, from a scrap I'd been hoarding saving.  It measures 36 x 36 inches.

The back is funky purple, pink, and orange, oh my!

And with that, I say Bang a Gong!

(Edited to add:  I did a post about how to make this quilt, which you can find HERE.)