I finished a new quilt today.
This is the way it went:
I started out to make a light summer quilt with only light fabrics and a beautiful pattern of diamonds (diamond = a square which is set on top, this often stands for "protection" in African American quilts). I planned to have them all neatly arranged one next to the other. Nice bright border around. I made all the calculations for dimensions. It seemed to be plain and easy to do.
The part with which I started is now the middle part of my quilt.
To the bright fabrics I swiftly added some dark red and brown fabrics. It looked too cool to me without them (even in a summer quilt). Checked cloth looks cozy to me, so I found myself using it often here, too.
Then I felt like abandoning the original pattern altogether and I moved on freely with some pieces arranging here, some pieces arranging there, all around the first three diamonds. Then I felt like giving all this a firm, strong border in warm dark red (to hold it all together a bit). But once this border was attached I began to improvise with pieces again (which is not that easy to do).
I used lovely antique, embroidered cloth as well. I have inherited a stack of that.
Then I was thinking about complementary colors, and - to answer the red part - I added some green (after having put green in and out before). Green, however, reminds me of a friend who plays an important "complementary" role in my life, so I am glad: the green is worked in. Twice, a bigger and a smaller piece.
Then I added a tiny piece of bright fabric with a floral design, reminding me of a friend who worked on her fabulous quilt sometimes directly next to me; she used this fabric in her quilt.
Then my sisters returned from a trip to France, and presented me on my birthday with linen from a market in the Provence, and I added it promptly here.
Then I attached a checked border all around, with some fabric I had purchased only recently for a quite different purpose (Christmas bags for the family), but I saw it fit right here now.
I planned to quilt the whole piece with regular diagonal lines at first, but then I quilted squares, diamonds, zigzag and meander lines, and not only with bright yarn, as I originally had intended: I found lovely red yarn at a department store in Berlin, so I used that, too. (not in the picture)
Finally, I added another border (but only at three sides). I luckily received a checked cotton remnant in red and beige on my sister's birthday party (together with a huge sack of other remnants, from a nice lady who runs a Bed & Breakfast, just because we talked about quilts...) , now it makes a lovely part of my outer border here.
I started to make this quilt in August 2010 and since then I had laid it down to rest for some time in between very often.
In the end now I'm happy with the result! I never would have been able to plan something like that!!
It is still a quilt for the summer, it is thin and weighs next to nothing, so I achieved my initial goal, but that is all that remained of my original ideas.
