Stargirl is a thank-you quilt, for a set of events I haven't been able to bring myself to write about publicly. The severity of Jeff's accident is known to nearly everyone at this point, I think, and I don't have to belabor the point. He is injured, gravely injured, and whatever recovery he is able to make will take a long time.

Jeff had always wanted Crystal and me to become friends. He picked a crappy way to do it, but he did make it happen.

Crystal and Jeff are closer friends than most people realize. She beat me to the hospital on the night we finally learned that Jeff was in UAB, and left his side as little as possible until he was transferred to Huntsville. She's one of the few people that Jeff would consistently respond positively to, early on, and since he's become conscious again she is someone he asks for, and clearly trusts.

I can step away from Jeff if she's there, because if she is, Jeff's in good hands. He knows it. She knows it. I know it.

Edmund even sat in her lap this weekend.  (Seriously!) No, really. Yes. Edmund. EDMUND. Bitey, cranky, deeply-stupid Edmund -- who hates everyone. Sat in her LAP. Wanted petting, too. Now, admittedly, she did look over at me with this look of is-he-going-to-bite-my-hand-off? fear.

I present Edmund in the aptly named 'Loaf of Cat' position.
by domesticat.
['Edmund in the loaf-of-cat position']

Stargirl is hers, named for a book she loves. Crystal came up to the house a couple of weekends ago, and I used the weekend as a great excuse to get my fabric stash re-sorted by color, and as a result she picked out fabrics she loved. She raided all the night-sky fabrics Jacob sent me, and others that had meaning to her. We also cut into the hospital gowns we've 'liberated' from UAB and HealthSouth. It seemed right, and fitting, that she have memories of this time embedded in her quilt.

Last weekend we cut fabrics, Crystal and I. This weekend I sewed as much as I could, until I ran out of white sashing fabric. I'll get more soon, and will be ready to finish the quilt shortly thereafter. I've had a blue-on-blue star fabric for quilt backing stashed for months and months, and it was so obviously perfect for this quilt that I couldn't justify holding on to it any longer.

Jeff has already said that he approves.