under the influence

i was watching tv the other day and caught an episode of sarah's house, a really neat interior designer from canada. in this episode they went to christie's antique show and happened along a beautiful antique yellow and white quilt. the quilt was a simple patchwork of yellow suns with an orange triangle border. from what i could see the stitching was really beautiful as well. when they showed the finale show of the entire farmhouse i kept seeing these really simple but bold colors against white kind of quilts. i've always wanted one but have felt intimidated by the shear size of quilts to ever try my hand at one in human scale. but i felt really inspired after watching this show, so i decided a lap quilt of random pinwheels patchwork would be nice.

i'm not sure if my method is accurate, but i've seen quilts made on a number of occasions so i just did what came to me. i sketched out my idea, made measurements, and cut out a triangle and square template from paper to use. i cut everything with a pair of shears, not too worried about complete accuracy, because i want a quilt you know is made by hand; and hey, imperfection is it's own perfection.

one thing which was nice about making this quilt is that i was able to raid my neglected cotton collection to come up with nine different color combinations. i am really happy with the colors, some pale some bright, but allover a soft palette.

i started work cutting and piecing friday night and as of this morning the top of the quilt is sewn together. i'm plotting what is to be done with the back, i don't like the idea of just having a plain solid back. tuesday i'll be able to buy the batting, maybe bamboo, maybe cotton, definitely not polyester. hand quilting will be my method of madness and i wonder if buying a large embroidery hoop will help. time to make a shopping list: thimble, safety pins, batting, hoop, thread...