Showing posts with label love. Show all posts
Showing posts with label love. Show all posts

Monday, June 20, 2016

The things we do for love

My oldest niece is having a Big Birthday this year.
When I saw her last, I asked, "Would you like a quilt?"
"Yes, please," she replied.
"Lap-sized or bed-sized?"
"A big one, please."

OK. So I asked her to send me a photo of her room, which she did -- a picture of an elegant room in plums & pale gray with silver accents -- it looked like something from a magazine!
Can I make a quilt that will be at home there!?!
Well, I will try.

I gathered a few plums & purples from my stash. I guess I am not a purple person, so some online & in-real-life shopping were necessary for a stack of 30-some prints & solids. Now for a pattern -- after much study, I settled on one out there these days on the interwebs: Wanta Fanta by blossomheartquilts.com. Basically, it is a kaleidoscope-ish block & a snowball block; in combination, they make a pretty, overall pattern.

I had been sewing & sewing & not seeing much progress -- that is, until I did see progress. The pattern isn't hard, just a bit fussy. Now that the design is emerging, I am getting excited. It's kind of elegant!

As a sort of palette cleanser to the elegance, I pulled out a stack of wacky blocks my Grandmother made. She gave them to me long ago when I first got seriously interested in quilt-making. She finished only 2 quilts -- a flower garden -- Mom & Dad's wedding gift, now mine, & a wedding ring that my cousin has. Both are beautiful & beautifully made. This stack of plaid-on-plaid blocks are beautifully made, but beautiful? Not so much. Grandma was a refined farm woman, but these blocks are not refined! I wish I had asked what prompted her to make them. Anyway, rather than calming their loudness with a solid, I decided to turn them up a little more with some calicoes.