My First Modern Quilt - Day 4

Flashback Friday 

My first modern quilt was made in 2004 before I knew there was even such a thing outside of traditional quilt making. I used red, black and white to make a baby quilt for friends who were researching the use of these high-contrast colors. (They later decided to do yellow and green instead so this has been in my personal collection a long time.)

I entered it into a local fair as a baby quilt in 2005 thinking it would stand out and be an avant garde design. I came in second place to a quilt that was literally pastel squares in a row because the judges said it did not look like a baby quilt. I saw that as a compliment because I didn't want to make something you would find in a store.

The Design

I was chopping up this red-striped fabric I love and started arranging them in lines. Then I would cut through them and rearrange them sew and cut again. I stopped when I came up with a panel that spoke to me. I took the red, black, and white dots fabric and made rectangles. I cut them in half and added the white. I placed them in a diamond pattern to help frame the center.  I also wanted to use black satin binding because I didn't want a light color that would show all of the baby stains it could potentially acquire. I thought it needed some color to break up some of the black before I started quilting it. The scraps from the red-striped fabric were sewn together to make a top and bottom strip to help break up all of the black that seemed to over power it. (After all, they were not Goth parents.)

Here's the front view:

I wanted to make an interesting pattern on the back and cut the stripes on a diagonal. I lined them up so they would make a diamond pattern when sewn together.  I quilted it in a spiral because it looked so hypnotic to me.

Back view:

My quilting has come a long way since this first venture into what I called an avante garde baby quilt at the time. This quilt started my love for making quilts that are not what you would typically find in books or stores.

The current modern quilting movement has given me a place to call home.