The friend who gave me a stack of pink and green batiks also gave me some leftover batik strips in shades of blue and white. I immediately chose a checkerboard pattern for them, but half way through decided to add both yellow and orange batiks from my stash to break up what I felt was the monotony of the blue and white.
When I went shopping for a backing fabric I found a cute sailboat print in blue & yellow. It is also a Reproduction, but from the 1930’s, not the 1800’s. US fabric companies in the 1930’s started designing cute prints in bright, happy colors to help cheer up the population living through the Great Depression: Pink elephants and orange camels. Polka-dot dogs and dancing cats. Little boys and girls at play. Daisies, toys, teacups, kitchen & sewing supplies, objects that suggested travel and adventure — basically every item and theme that might bring people pleasure. Help them dream a little for a better day to come.
1930’s Repros are rarely, if ever, my usual choice for quilt making, but every once in awhile I find one that works well with what I’m doing and it’s fun to make that kind of discovery.
The quilting on this quilt is, as I’ve said, one of my favorite designs: Water. If I could quilt every quilt this way I’d be happy! (I must have been a fish in a previous life. Or perhaps, according to Chinese philosophy, water is my element.)
I finished the quilt with a yellow batik binding, sewn on my Juki. What a fast and efficient way to do a binding!
The quilt measures 50″ X 70″: the perfect size for a picnic … a child’s bed … or an afternoon nap. Anyone who has been to my home knows I love to put quilts on the table, too.
UPDATE: I gifted this quilt to the friend who originally gave me the blue and white batik strips. And she loved the blue and yellow sailboats on the back! Hopefully it will find a lovely spot in her new home by the water.
Sings the Raven 