Onwards

I’m so excited to be sharing this finish today! I was lucky enough to participate in a Modern Quilt Guild challenge sponsored by Michael Miller and featuring the Madrona Road line by Violet Craft. I had already fallen in love with this line before the challenge was announced, so of course I couldn’t wait to get started.

Although I didn’t anticipate it when I began quilting, I love working with single collections. It gives me a chance to more fully explore the designer’s ideas and intentions for a collection, I think, and I have fun trying to come up with concepts that seem to fit with the collection itself. It’s also a great way to study all of the components of a successful fabric collection, lessons I try to put to use with my own textile designs. Or, it could be that I just really like charm packs…

Anyway, as I was brainstorming ideas for the Madrona Road challenge, I thought of Meindert Hobbema’s painting Avenue at Middelharnis, and immediately knew it was a perfect fit with both the collection and my own personal appliqué style. I worked out the layout in Illustrator and added in some of the oranges from the collection’s other color story to warm up the cool blues, yellows, and greys. Cutting out the tree appliqués was interesting, because as you move towards the center each tree is only about half the size of the larger one beside it. The illusion works so well, though, that it’s hard to perceive the actual size differences between the physical pieces.

I went a little crazy on the back, too. I love the Wild Carrot print, so I knew I wanted to feature a large piece of that. I left the selvage on, which provides a nice little record of the collection’s creator and title. I’d also been experimenting with the herringbone pattern in another patchwork project. I recently learned that it’s known as a braid, but it reminds me of the herringbone brick work of the sidewalks around Columbia University, and it picks up on the similarly named print used on the front of the quilt. I’m really glad I got to incorporate some of the scraps from the appliqués into this part of the back.

I quilted around the outlines of the trees and then used radiating lines for the lower half to reinforce the idea of a receding road. I quilted wavy horizontal lines in the top half to evoke a wide sky and reinforce the illusion of expansive space.

I’m really happy with how this quilt turned out, and so pleased to be able to share it as part of such a fun challenge! Thanks so much for stopping by to share it with me!

(I’ll be linking up with Finish-it-up-Friday at Crazymomquilts–many thanks to Amanda Jean for hosting this each week!)