First Annual Bloggers' Quilt Festival

This is a casual photo of my favorite quilt ~ Colors of Joy ~ I've made a lot of quilts in the last few years, but this one always, always makes me smile.

Created in 2005, less than a year after I started making quilts, this scrappy batik beauty with its pieced, scrappy batik back hangs on the wall in our foyer and I can see it through the 2nd story window as I come up the driveway . . . so wonderful, especially in the wintertime when the lights are on inside the house.

Chris (my longarm quilter/quilty friend) and I took the Fickle Pickle class at our LQS in the spring of 2005. I finished my quilt, Chris quilted it on her new longarm machine, and I entered Colors in the fair that fall (2d place ribbon). Chris made parts and pieces and two completed blocks during the classes and then moved on to other projects until . . . earlier this year when she boxed up all the fabrics and pieces and parts and mailed them to me! Pass the Pickles Please is now a work in progress at my house and will become the new quilt for our king bed. Woo hoo!

These links will take you to my Picasa photo albums for Colors of Joy and Pass the Pickles Please ~ hope you enjoy! To learn more about this first ever online festival, click here.

Quiltdivajulie
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"I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn't say any other way... things I had no words for." (Georgia O'Keefe)

Colors of Joy

This photo was taken in August 2005... Colors of Joy was created using the Fickle Pickle pattern (which I still love) and it was the first quilt Chris completed on her first longarm machine. All of the fabrics are batiks (including the back, which was not seen as a favorable choice by our LQS owner). Scrappy was my only rule ~ and no two segments were cut from the same fabric. This is my only truly successful attempt at paper piecing (the toothed segments)... it also allowed me a chance to master simple curved piecing and how to use clear thread to machine applique the arcs. Even then I was showing early signs of my "liberated" nature by using asymmetrical inner borders (the yellow and black) ~ offsetting narrow and wide on opposing sides of the quilt ~ and the completely random piano key border.

Colors earned a 2d place ribbon in the 2006 Mid-South Fair and has hung in our foyer ever since. As I come up the driveway (our house sits on an ever-so-slight hill), I can see the upper quarter of the quilt through the 2nd story window (especially when it is dark outside and the light in the foyer is on)... and Colors, one of my favorites, still makes me smile.

Quiltdivajulie