Warm Spring

 

I got stuck -- in a good way -- on improv curves. As in, I couldn't stop making them. When I needed to make a baby quilt, what else was there to do but dive into my stash of warm solids and curve away. But I've also become a huge fan of negative space, so it was time to combine improv curves and negative space into one magic quilt top.

One improv quilt block + one border + a bunch of Moda Snow (which is a touch off-white and looks best with warm colors). This moved from vision to reality pretty quickly, which is one of my favorite things about baby-quilt-making. Deciding on how to back the quilt was also an exercise is serendipity, or at least in serendipitous eye-falling-on-perfect-stash-fabric-not-noticed-for-a-while. {Note: Blogger's spell-check is super unhappy with my German-esque noun-creation.}

I purchased these cuts of Rio flowers and squares (from Marcus Brothers) years ago. Well, maybe about 4 years ago? I had used a small piece of the flowers for a scarf -- which I planned to link to but named the post something clever that I can't easily find right now -- and let the rest sit around for years. I really like the fabric, but its palette isn't the easiest to work with as it's more subdued -- that is, more shaded -- than most modern fabrics out there right now. But never fear: all fabric can be used. The right project will come along. And suddenly, it becomes necessary to use just that fabric (and maybe a little fun orange solid) to back a quilt.

That little purple triangle might be my favorite part of the improv section. It's tiny but noticeable, in a  good way. I quilted it with straight-ish lines about 1-2 inches apart -- off-white thread on the front and orange thread on the back. Except for the one line of maroon thread on the back after I ran out of orange thread. My thread-remaining-on-spool calculations were pretty good, all things considering. Or the fact that I lack x-ray vision considering. "Warm Spring" -- which understates the freakishly warm 10 days we had in Michigan in March -- has made it to San Diego, where Mina will get to enjoy it and where it's warm all the time, I'm told.