Madrona Road!

Oh dear. The blogging fell by the wayside again. There have been quite a few finishes between the last one I posted here and this one but I am going to write about this instead.

Because it has donkey fabric.

The Modern Quilt Guild and Michael Miller Fabric sponsored the guilds of several cities to come up with a project from Violet Craft's Madrona Road fabric collection. The line tells a detailed story...go here to check it out (http://blog.violetcraft.com/2012/04/memoir-of-madrona-road.html). I loved the way that the story tied in with the line and fell in love with the text print several months ago when I saw it at Crimson Tate. In fact, I liked it so much I bought a half yard just to gaze at and that became the basis for the quilt.

It is hard to get good pictures during a snowstorm in January in Indiana so these aren't the best, but you get the jist. I wanted to make the text the focus, but still show off some of the other prints. This was my first time doing freezer paper applique and it was a good technique to get the curves I wanted without torturing myself.

The wonky stars worked with the magical nature of the story. And I love wonky stars.

I don't usually do a backing fabric from a single print but I was kind of obsessed with this. It has donkeys!

For the quilting I chose to follow the lines made by the road. I have to admit that quilting it so closely kind of made me question my sanity, but it was worth it because of the way it turned out. On the back print it looks like plowed fields which pleases me to no end.

This was a great challenge. I have to admit that when I got the fabric bundle I was very unsure of what to do. These aren't colors I usually work with and are not what I would have picked but I ended up stretching myself and making something that I love.