Quilting Inspiration

Yesterday I went on a quilt shop hop with my sewing buddy. The name of this particular hop is the Michigan Stash Dash. We had four women with us who were new to all of this and I relived the excitement of feeling like a kid in a candy store by being with them. I came home full of ideas from what I had seen, and full of enthusiasm that I caught from my travel companions. We visited 7 shops, not an easy task to accomplish in one 12 hour day. Each store worked with the same fabrics, designing their own block, and then combining the blocks from all the stores to create a finished quilt. I always enjoy seeing how different each quilt looks. They could a metaphor for people. We all have common components (two eyes, one nose, one mouth, etc) but we're all assembled differently and we're all beautiful works of art that give warmth when wrapped around someone.

I won't be making any of the large quilts from the stash dash, but I will make a small wall quilt or table runner from small amounts of the featured fabrics. A few baby quilts will be next on my sewing agenda, and then some holiday sewing. The last quilt project for myself is this wall quilt that I call Canned Fruit. I collected fat quarters of fruit prints for over a year with an entirely different project in mind, but a Mason jar inspired me to play with that shape and this quilt was born. The multi-colored border is a mixed fruit print that also backs the quilt.