New Quilt part 1

My newest quilt went for a little trip to Paducah KY in April. I had high hopes for it, but no ribbon was ever pinned on it. That is a little bit disappointing for a quilt that I thought was so wonderful, full of color and nature. I put my “all” into it.

 The quilt was inspired by a line drawing made in the 1800’s from a tomb painting in ancient Egypt. I couldn’t get the sketch out of my mind! I took the basic layout, and then placed the tree and pond on a patchwork setting. Designing the entire quilt was very exciting as it went together quite easily. I’ve never made anything this shape before, it is taller than I am, but because it is so narrow, it will fit on a small wall.

 I had great fun fabricating the parts. I love the way all the pieces worked together. The small water garden fits right below the fig tree. It took hours putting together the plants, ducks and geese.  When the trunk and the limbs of the tree went up, I could see the skeleton of a great quilt. Then I started cutting out the leaves. What was I thinking? There are hundreds of them. The little yellow figs made the green of the leaves sparkle.  It is going to take forever to embroider them.

The ducks/geese on the lower edge, took a great deal of time to fuse together.

The last one was finished before I realized that it was backwards! I couldn’t throw it out. I wound up on my quilt Pipe Dreams on the right side.http://www.annfahl.com/ann2/quilts.php?key=125  I love it when my quilts relate to one another, by having imagery that come from each other.

The earthen pots of red poppies are the crowning glory of the composition. I chose to use a
magnificent piece of orange and red hand dyed fabric by Dagmar Plenk of Milwaukee; the colors make the flowers sing.

These flowers were the last object to be quilted on the quilt. I had to do lots of experimenting to find the right idea to stitch.  I made a miniature quilt with similar flowers, and tried a different design on each one.  You can see this small quilt in my small quilt gallery.go to http://www.annfahl.com/ann2/quilts.php?key=132 

You can see the entire quilt-- later.