I LOVE this quilt!!! I love that I got to try some new techniques while making it. I love that it stretched my creativity and is my own unique design. I love the way the quilting enhances the design. I love that most of the fabrics came from my stash. I love that it's soft and cuddly! I just love it!!!
A friend of mine works for an adolescent psychiatric treatment center and we've discussed how some quilts could warm the place up a bit but never got around to specifics. In my mind I wanted to make something soothing yet interesting. Something that the more you looked at it the more you saw. I call this Keeping It Together. There is a mix of traditional nine patch blocks and crazy nine patch blocks. Without revealing too much of my own insanity, I see it as the tidal pull between chaos and structure. The fabrics are batiks I've picked up over the years mixed in with a few trips to my LQS. I quilted it on the longarm with a wavy pattern called Happy Times and after I picked the thread I found out it's named appropriately enough, De Nile. I love a good pun!
Then came my previously mentioned binding tizzy which I decided to view as an opportunity to stretch out of my perfect world comfort zone and do something creative. I asked myself "What Would Rachel (my incredibly imaginative friend) Do?" and decided even though I actually still had fabric to make more matching binding I'd use something else. Rachel pointed out that modern quilt goddess Alissa also had the same problem/solution so I'm not sure it was really as risk-taking as it felt but it definitely worked with my philosophy for this quilt.
What I love most about this quilt is that it has reminded me that my quilts should capture MY vision!
Love it! Can't wait to see it in person! The color palette is so soothing but it has so much motion - it's really great!
ReplyDeleteMissed you yesterday - hope to see you soon!