The Spring Quilt

This winter I was “confined” and had a lot of time to read, to sew and…to surf the internet.  Somewhere along the way I ran across the work of Japanese illustrator Siota Mako …

and the idea for the spring quilt was born…here are a few more of the inspirational flowers of Mako’s that I really liked and saw immediately as applique…

with lots of really fun quilting added.  I’m not really much of a “sewer”…it surprises me that I came to enjoy quilting at all, as I resisted sewing my entire life until a few years ago.  I do it so as to have a surface to quilt…to draw with thread really.  But I started making my own wacky spring blocks…Mako-inspired….

The blocks were all different widths so I added color strips or prints (like the “Piece of Cake” wedding quilt of last year…)…a piece Cynthia gave me, bits from other quilts of my own, a piece of the backing of a quilt L.A. made for us, some fabric that reminds me of Sujata, a bit of Mary’s hand-dyed (got to watch out for THAT one), some vintage fabric from the guys in Butte…everything but the kitchen sink, basically…and then…should there be spaces between the rows???  Colors????

Nope…last night I sewed all the blocks together…

but today I decided on a neutral border to kind of corral the wacky energy of the thing (though after Sally described “borders as modern conceits” I’ve been less interested in using them…but…)…and maybe a lavender binding eventually…

I think it will work.  Tomorrow I’ll got get something for the back and then the fun begins…!  This should keep me busy for a couple of months of car trips, HG TV, sitting outside at the beach…and quilting away like a fiend.