Oriental Madness

Have you ever seen this ad? It came in the mail a few years ago for a quilt book they wanted you to buy. I wasn't interested in the book but really like this quilt. I decided to make it in oriental fabrics. That's where the madness part came in. I took a day off from work and hit 3 quilt shops and Joann's buying a 1/4 yard of every oriental fabric I could find. It wasn't enough so I also bought a medley of fabrics from Keepsake Quilting. I also needed an assortment of light to medium tans for the background. The pattern was partially from a magazine, enlarged on a copy machine & partially hand drawn. I paper pieced the spikey arcs and pinned the heck out of the rest. When I finally got the central motif done I just couldn't look at it any more. I tried and tried but I just could not bring myself to make the border. So, I asked my friend Tristan would put the border on for me. He said yes and I shipped it off to him. He completed it in a short amount of time.



How do you quilt something like this with all those seams? You send it off to a longarmer of course. I shipped it off again, this time to my friend Glenda. She too completed the job in a short amount of time.



I entered this quilt in the Broward Quilt Expo last March in the group quilt category (I had to give everyone credit) and it took a first place ribbon. This quilt is now on my queen size bed and is one of my favorites.

I hope you have noticed the diamond in the background. On my bed you don't notice it. As I said before I used and assortment of light to medium tans. Getting that subtle diamond in there was not so easy and I was disappointed when it isn't noticeable . Hanging is a show is about the only way you can see it.