The Color Purple

Now that I have some confidence about machine piecing curves (after the love beads top - more to come on the related quilting dilemma with that), I decided to pick up a UFO. Hanne's purple and white quilt reminded me of mine sitting in a ziplock bag somewhere.

I lived in Romania from 2003-6 and traveled almost all the time to rural areas of the country. I thought that maybe some handpiecing would be good for the train, so I started this project. I found the pattern in an old Quilters Newsletter issue (I buy used copies donated to the New England Quilt Museum to fundraise for their library). I quickly learned that handpiecing is not for me - and read instead.

I chose purples for this with a friend in mind. She was recently married and was hoping to get pregnant after finishing her PhD thesis that included analysis of Alice Walker's The Color Purple. She's since had a little boy, so I'll save this one for another little girl.

There are all sorts of purples in here - some scraps from M.A.T.'s squares quilt, plenty of 30s, etc. I know they don't all 'work' together (there's not enough constrast between some of the lights and darks), but hopefully it has that one-color scrappy look that I like. I bought most of it in 1/4 yard pieces. You'll notice there are some mismatched blocks (lower right corner) - this wasn't part of my original plan! I made one of the templates the wrong size, so I had to recut some pieces halfway through. I have a lot of odd shaped scraps now - wonder how I'll ever use those! I had more than a 1/4 yard of the most prominant lights, but then the original stripe I was going to bind it with bled all over one of them in the wash, so after washing and washing, I had to cut around the blotchy bits. These are the blessings and curses of not being able to pop down to my LQS - I fabric shop once or twice a year in bulk when I visit my family in Maine.

I wish I had a design wall to help me lay these out this weekend! At least this way I wash my floors more often!