Good & Plenty

Or Mike & Ikes, because, to be honest, I hate licorice and bubble-gum pink, which places Good & Plenty's pretty low on my candy consumption list. So low that I don't think I've tasted a Good & Plenty in decades, if not longer. But candy, delightful as it can be (when it's tasty and all), is not actually the point of this post. (Shocking, right?)

I'm really hoping that this quilt made it to its new home. I haven't heard and, as luck would have it, I sent it on its merry way to New York City two days before Sandy unleashed chaos on the region. Priority Mail, I'm guessing, did not operate quite as quickly as usual in the aftermath of a damaging storm. And I didn't put a tracking number on it because apparently I like to test fate. If nothing else, I'm recording its existence here.

I really like the quilts I make. But this one? This quilt I love. The idea popped into my head and, despite some unfortunate moments with the seam ripper, it came into being before exasperation set it. Each Good & Plenty orb uses a large rectangle plus 4 drunkard's block pieces, and I think it might be more efficient and precise to use half-circle blocks, but that's an experiment waiting in the wings. I can imagine all sorts of other color combinations and layouts with these blocks, but I do love them in solids. Some of my favorite solids to be precise -- Betty's Orange, Charcoal, a beguiling aqua whose name I don't know, Gray, and a charming yellow whose name likewise escapes me. They're either Moda Bella Solids or Kona, and the background cream is Moda Snow.

I got all fancy with the orb-quilting, using coordinating thread, a free-motion foot, and a different technique (most of which were new to me) in each color. There are pebbles. There are loops. There are squiggles. And there viney leaves. Viney leaves, people. Those were new and tricky and challenging, and I have no idea how people quilt more of the them in larger spaces on their home machines. I hear there's this thing called practice, but still, that's some hard quilting.

As has been my wont this fall, I pieced a backing from stash fabrics. A half-yard here, a whole yard there, and random pieces in between. I'm making a slight dent in the piles, and I love displaying some larger swaths. Cute as those elephants are, it's the repeat in the orange fabric that pleases me most.

As always, Good & Plenty is machine-bound. I got a little fancy here, using aqua thread on the charcoal binding for a little twist. It's only visible close-up, but it adds a little solid sparkle to the edges.