Monday, February 24, 2014

Easily amused

Yes, that's me -- Easily Amused.

The combination of this quilt block, the maple leaf, representing a traditionally cold-climate tree, with these tropical Hawaiian fabrics just pleases me.


I unearthed the fabrics recently (yes, yes, my stash is just this side of infinite), a long ago purchase at the Quilt Festival. I got them from a Japanese vendor who had a lot of tropical prints. I got 6 & later found some other fabrics that coordinated. But I hadn't a plan for how to use them, so they all got stowed away.

Re-finding them, they jumped to the top of my Make-Me-NOW! list. I liked the colors when I got them & am really loving them now -- golden yellows, peanut butter tans, avocado-y greens. With large-scale prints, sometimes I like to cut them up, making the print hardly recognizable. But this time I wanted to show off the ukuleles, plumeria & hibiscus, so I wanted a large-scale block. The Modern Maples pattern from Lark Crafts -- the blocks finish at 12 inches, a chunky leaf -- was perfect.  My fabrics were funny cuts, kind of fat half yards, I used nearly every bit to cut out 4 leaves from each print -- nothing left for stems. So my leaf stems are 2 different browns. My background solid was something I found on my shelves, but again, I ran out. And again, no problem: I can substitute in a text-y, texture-y print.


Soon I'll have an Aloha Maple quilt!

5 comments:

Julierose said...

Loving this pattern--AND your choices of fabrics are so lovely...glad you are having fun with your "old" found fabrics...hugs, Julierose

Rachaeldaisy said...

Wowie Zowie to your Aloha Maple quilt!!! It's brilliant!! I love to way you found those fabrics in your stash and had to use them Now!!

Nifty Quilts said...

Wonderful tropical fabrics, and I love what you're doing with them! They look perfect as big leaves. The sharp lines and angles balance out the swirly patterns. I also love your "no problem" approach when you run out of a fabric!

amy and the bad cats said...

so awesome! and way to go on stashbusting!

safieh said...

So cool, Beth!