A Second-Time Quilt

Earlier this week, I posted a photo of the drawer of fabrics set aside for Joyce's quilt. She was nice enough to send me a scan of a photo of the original quilt we made, way back in the mid-1990's. I believe it was the second quilt I ever made.

(The kitty cat modeling the quilt is Stosh, who lived to the ripe age of 18)

The design was based on a tile Joyce and her husband used in their bathroom. They had a designer come to help finish the master bedroom design. The designer liked the tile motif and quilt colors and had a cornice made to match.

This photo is in color - it's simply a gray tile! Obviously, we made the quilt more colorful. Joyce chose fabrics that go from black to red diagonally across the outer part of the quilt, and from red to blue in the inner square on point.

Joyce's quilt has unfortunately suffered from years of use and exposure to sunlight -- one of the red fabrics has pretty well disintegrated. So we are remaking the quilt. Joyce learned to sew the same way I did - our mother taught us at home when we were very young and made doll clothes. Later, Mom was our 4-H club leader, so we got written instruction and were judged on our efforts at the County Fair. But Joyce has so far not taken any classes in quilting and has made all her quilts jointly with me.

By now, with ever more complicated queen-sized quilts for her three children under our belts, this remake will be more complicated than the original. Here's a picture of Joyce working on the layout of the red, purple and blue fabrics for one large triangular area.



If you click on the photo, in the upper left hand corner you can see a computer-generated color drawing of the new concept of changing gradually from one color to the other in the large areas that will be on the top of the bed. We are using some of the same fabrics Joyce used 15 years ago that I still have in my collection, but this time we'll need more of each color - and none of the darker reds. I've been looking on-line for collections of fat quarters and charm squares so she'll have more to work from when she gets here in late February.

When Joyce was last here, we pieced most of the large section shown. She took the parts home and I think not much has happened with it since. So we're both looking forward to getting on with this quilt!