Actually, this quilt was begun years ago, truth to tell! I designed it under the tutelage of quilt artist and teacher Mary Mushuta at the Houston Quilt Festival. The quilt made by Mary is found in one of Kaffe Fassett's books, CARAVAN OF QUILTS, in double spread pages 12 and 13, and then the directions for it are on p. 78. Mary used all Kaffe fabrics, shot cottons and stripes. The fabrics I chose are not his, but are considerably brighter than the ones Mary used. In the class, after we cut out the hour glass blocks, Mary helped us with designing the layout. I pinned the pieces on flannel, folded it up, put it away, and then, years later, pulled it out to make the quilt. I ended up not liking how Mary had me arrange the blocks! She wanted me to use four different fabrics in each block, which made the quilt look far too chaotic to my eyes!
I decided to alternate warm and cool colors in the hour-glass blocks, and I turned the cool blocks one way (in terms of color value) and the warm colors the other. When I made and attached the yo-yo's, I chiefly put a warm yo-yo on a cool block, and vice versa.
I quilted it just as Mary did--with serpentine stitching through the seam lines of the blocks, the big ones and the small ones in the sashing, plus "stitch in the ditch" quilting along all major seam lines. For the serpentine stitching, I used violet thread in the cool block, coral in the warm ones.
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| warm yo-yo on cool block--violet quilting |
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| cool yo-yo on warm block--coral quilting |
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| The label that is adhered to the back of the quilt. |
