Tuesday, May 01, 2007

Taking the Scenic Route

Memories of the Titanic made it to Denver, but according to UPS tracking it took the long way around! When I looked on Friday my quilt had left Oregon, gone to Kentucky, to California, to Illinois, then to Colorado. I just wish it could have picked me up some souvenirs along the way! I was relieved in the extreme to see it marked delivered Monday morning. So, if anyone out there happens to be going to the Denver National Quilt Festival, please tell my quilt that I miss it and looking forward to it coming home again (hopefully be a less circuitous route!).


This quilt was inspired by (surprise!) the movie Titanic. Specifically it was inspired by a glimpse of a floor tile that just begged to be made into a quilt block. After drafting the block I realized that it looked like a negative coloration of a storm at sea block set on point. I decided to make a Storm at Sea on point, using the negative coloration in the center and framing it with the normal coloration of the block. After completing this part of the quilt I decided that it needed something a little more exciting in the center. Something like a Mariner's Compass. So, the compass was appliqued over the center.

Then the quilt started growing, it wanted waves around the outside, so I used a Snail's Trail block around the outside, but colored it so it looked like waves swirling around the outside. After putting this much thought and energy into it I wanted to make it special, so decided on hand quilting. It took many months to decide how to quilt the white border, but finally decided to keep it simple, just some windblown swirls.

I finished it just in time to enter in the Coos Sand and Sea show in 2005, where it was awarded Best of Show! At this point I put it away and was busy with other projects, but decided that I should enter it in a larger show, just to see what would happen. I was really happy to have it accepted and am anticipating to see what the judges think about it. I know there are things I would change about it, particularly the quilting, so it will be interesting to get another opinion on it!

1 comment:

Rose Marie said...

Wow ... your quilt is gorgeous! Thank you for telling us your thoughts and how you did this hanging.