Valentine Quilt

More Road to California is coming–just had a lot of lesson prep to do–plus this little detour.

This is a WIP post–Work In Progress post–hosted by Lee of Freshly Pieced Fabrics. Since having my heck-of-a-December, these weekly deadlines have been quite a blessing for me. They give me a goal to have my hands on the cloth at least once a week. Many thanks, Lee!

But this afternoon/evening I stole away from the computer for a few minutes to start on a Valentine Quilt (Let’s hope it doesn’t turn into a Forth of July quilt!). It all started when Rhonda sent me a photo of a quilt she was doing for a class for Mare’s Bears–a local quilt shop near Alexandria, Virginia, where I used to live.

I fell in love with it–so fun and fresh and so red-and-white. We talked on the phone and she told me her inspiration was Le Jardin Cerise, in a recent McCall’s magazine. I looked up that quilt and to me, they looked very dissimilar. The original was a blender quilt, with more emphasis on color, whereas Rhonda’s had an emphasis on value–the light-to-dark of a quilt. She gives credit to the magazine for the pattern, but I give credit to Rhonda for making it sing for me!

So I opened the “red” cupboard. . .

. . . and picked a swath of reds.

Maybe I had red and white on the brain, having shopped at Sandy Klop’s booth at Road to California, where they gave me this very cute bag. (See our photo with her below).

And maybe because Cindy and I (on the right) were all decked out in reddish tones. And maybe because all the stores have put away their Christmas and gone straight to Valentine’s Day. But I think it’s more because of Rhonda’s amazing skills.

Beginning, I cut red squares, until I remembered that Rhonda said she’d done a more streamlined way of putting it together, sewing the thin strips onto the larger.

Okay. Back on track. Then I bordered them with strips on which I’d placed a square, then stitched diagonally to make a triangle.

So here are my first four blocks, with the little pinwheel in the center. Mine’s much more unkempt than Rhonda’s, because I drew from my stash, while she limited herself to six fabrics. Of course, I like hers better (I always do), but mine will work. I have to teach in the morning, but look forward to getting back to this tomorrow afternoon, raiding my stash for reds to make it work.