Starry Night Over Kyiv

I was working on my May 2025 Island Batik Ambassador Challenge using the Autumn Twilight Signature Collection by Jerry Khiev for Raija Salomaa when I was inspired to create a homage to Starry Night by Van Gogh.

Autumn Twilight is a gorgeous collection, a particular design in the collection was inspiring, Tree Rings. Tree Rings’ swirls reminded me of Starry Nights. This design with midnight colors and shadows had a beautiful, etheral quality.

I did not want to do an exact copy of Van Gogh’s famous painting but just a homage. Van Gogh painted two Starry Nights in 1888 and 1889. In 1888, Starry Night over the Rhone was the first painted. He was in Arles, France. The next year, one of Van Gogh’s famous paintings, Starry Night was painted while he was an asylum patient in Saint-Remy-de-Provence.

Starry Night Over the Rhone

What landscape would I do? My daughter had recently requested an art quilt with Ukraine as the subject which was the deciding factor to select Kyiv’s skyline as my Starry Night homage location. Kyiv is the capital and most populous city in Ukraine. Located in the north-central part of the country, it straddles both sides of the Dneiper River which flows to the Black Sea.

The Kyiv location allowed the incorporation of both paintings by Van Gogh. Kyiv’s central district skyline is a contrast of new, modern buildings among the pale yellows, blues, and greys of older apartments.

First step of construction was to select the sky and river from my stash of muted gray/blue batiks. The sky measuring two inches longer than the river.

Sky: 24 inches by 16
River: 24 inches by 14

Once the sky and river were seamed, prep was started. Five-inch strips of the Tree Rings from the Autumn Twilight Island Batik collection plus dark blue, yellow and pale-yellow batiks were all ironed. These strips were ironed again backed with double -sided fusible, Pellon 510. Pressing fabric prior to attaching the fusible helps the process. The fused pieces are cooled before removing the backing.

The sky’s celestial elements include curvy swirls cut from the fused strips intertwined. Once fused to the sky section, these swirls were thread painted with various Brother Dreamweaver stitches. The moon a mix of degrees of yellow. Different metallic threads achieved sparkle with some hand embroidery to enhance.

The river was formed next with curvy strips cut from the fused strips. The reflection of the moon is center and is a homage to the Starry Night Over the Rhone’s many reflections. The same moon yellows were used for the reflection. The fused curvy strips were edged with a curvy solid stitch in shades of blue threads.

I have several solid stiches to choose from in the extensive built-in stitch library of my Brother Dreamweaver. One of the best features of this machine is the ability to design my own stich by changing the range individually of both the length and width of the stitch.

The skyline was the next element to construct. The picture above was my reference of inspiration. I had hoped to find an element that one could truly identify the skyline as Kyiv and thought of incorporating the statue of Mother Ukraine. After one trial of the statue, inclusion was nixed as too distracting. Additional review of the skyline identified one of the skyscrapers was lit with the same symbol on the shield on the Mother Ukraine statue. You can see it on the left in the skyline picture above. The symbol was created in rhinestones for my effort in the middle picture below. Rhinestones were set in the sky as stars and in a church steeple to reflect the