Topo Map: A Quilt

I've been waiting to show off this quilt for a while now -- the delay is all my fault, as I forgot neglected to take a full dose of pictures when I had the chance and had to ask its new owner to make up for my flawed execution. I scurried to finish this in March -- literally sewing on the binding the day I hopped on a plane to deliver it, or to meet up with my Bad-Decision-Dinosaur^TM-embracing and general-ruckus-making friends, Joel and Jenny. Joel was my fabulous roommate when I lived in Madison, and aside from being one of my closest friends, he has -- in the past 1.5 years -- defended his dissertation, found a job, bought a house, gotten engaged, and done all sorts of awesome things because he is awesome.

And awesome gets you a quilt in my book. It might be a super-late quilt, but it will get to you, one day. It will even be size-appropriate, because when you're tall, you need a tall quilt, obvs.

As previously noted, I accidentally channeled Denyse Schmidt's brain as I made this quilt. I'm pretty sure her technique does not involve making a bunch of half-square triangles (hsts), arranging them, abandoning that arrangement, realizing that said hsts could form giant flying geese with tails, piecing said geese, chopping the tails, and arranging them asymmetrically. Except maybe that last part, because DS, like yours truly, embraces the asymmetry. Sometimes being a little off-balance is a good thing.

I'm usually a mix-the-fabric-lines kind of quilter, but for some reason, my acquisition of Joel Dewberry's Modern Meadow led to some MM-only projects. Or MM+solids. In this case, 5 or so yards of Moda's Bella White (I should order that stuff by the bolt) and this lovely light brown courtesy a Target sheet. Because when you've taken all the quilt materials with you to Cincinnati to finish the quilt after working at the archives and then change your mind about what the back should look like, a sheet is a smart option: it's financially responsible and super soft to boot. This picture is theoretically upside down, if the location and direction of the quilt label matters, which it probably doesn't.

I don't have a great close-up of the quilting, but it resembles a topographic map -- you know, the ones that indicate elevation by the density of contour lines -- hence, calling this "Topo Map." Which is also perfect because Joel a) loves maps, b) sometimes makes maps, and c) taught me much of what I know about cartography. And flying geese love topo maps, or they should, if they want to fly efficiently and not run into trees.

Sometimes we go for the quizzical-hipster-in-ice-cave look, where a quilt would probably be quite useful.