Yesterday Lazy Gal Tonya surprised me by posting her Rumspringa quilt. It's fantastic and you should go see it if you haven't. Back in June she picked several people to send L-O-V-E letters to with the stipulation that we have them in a top by year's end. Well, I really put mine off until the last minute, but I finally got a free day last weekend and got the top made and basted, ready for hand quilting! Mine is quite a bit smaller than Tonya's at 28" x 29.5". I just started the hand quilting a couple of days ago, but Tonya asked for a reveal, so here it is.
Even though my hands weren't working on this for all those months, my mind was. At first I envisioned some sort of saying with the letters attached horisontally. I just couldn't come up with anything though. In the end I chose to put the LOVE letter in the blocks you see here. How surprised I was then to see that Tonya did the same thing! I did know that I wanted a house and a shoofly in the mix because I love those blocks and the improvisational blocks just happened. I think that is my favorite way to work now. I'm greatly inspired by Tonya, Gwen Marston, Jean Wells and the Gee's Bend Quilters right now.
The other thing I love about this is that I can just wing the hand quilting. I don't mark for this sort of quilt at all. I just fill in the spaces with whatever seems right at the time. I'm not sure what I'll do when I get to the border, but it might be free hand fans. It's not a very wide border though, so we'll see when we get there.
Thank you Tonya for providing the letters and so much inspiration! Take a look at the others who did the challenge: ThreadlinesKathieB and SewPrimitiveKaren. We're still waiting to see what QuiltvilleBonnie might do. Next time I've got some exciting quilter's news right here in my own neighboorhood. Stay tuned for that. I wish everyone a safe, healthy and very Happy New Year!