The Joy of Spring

Recently I’ve been thinking about my fabric scraps: wondering why I’ve kept them and how I’d ever use them (assuming I could even find what I wanted). The “Repetition” challenge gave me the perfect opportunity to haul them out and see what I had. Inspired by my mother-in-law’s mini log cabin and color study quilts I decided to piece something with small blocks.

I have a strange aversion to mixing hand dyed fabrics with novelty commercial prints so I purposefully made myself work with fabrics of each type. That is one of the joys of Viewpoints 9: the opportunity to experiment and to stretch my boundaries - however odd they may be. 😉 To further the repetition theme, I decided on a finished block size of 1” X 2” which would result in a quilt 18 X 18 pieces.

As much as I loved playing with my colored rectangles, the difficulty piecing them reminded me why I abandoned the precision and repetition of traditional quilting. I titled this piece “The Joy of Spring” because it reminds me of the colors and flowers of spring and the seasonal joy of that time of year.

The quilting is a bit hard to see so I’ve included a picture of the back. I am still learning to be bold with thread/fabric contrast. Having overcome my fear of mixing fabrics, I may take on the issue of thread choice in my next quilt.

The Joy of Spring is pieced with hand dyed cotton, batik and novelty print fabrics. It is machine quilted with cotton and polyester threads and measures 36” L X 18” H although it can be hung in any direction.