"500 Art Quilts"

"A Touch of Red"

This quilt was born out of my desire to step "out of my box" a little.

If you follow my blog you know that I love, love bright colored fabric. When I drew up this Oriental lily design I decided that I would use only black & white fabrics in the design.

I had tried this once before when I was working with a whonky Drunkard's Path pattern but wasn't successful. I was a little hesitant but decided to attack the project with all I had. After auditioning my b & w fabrics, a small stash I might add, I started cutting. There were several petals that just weren't working with my fabric choices so I discarded them and tried another fabric. Finally I felt I had the right fabrics.

I asked my friend and fellow quilter, Diana Pickens if she would quilt this piece for me and we decided to do a collaboration. This allowed us to be able to enter the quilt in computation. It was accepted at IQA, Houston, TX and AQS, Paducah, KY.

After discussion with Diana about the idea of the quilt we both decided that it had an Oriental flavor. Trusting her judgment I left the quilting design up to Diana. After studying a book on Japanese wood blocks Diana came up with the designs she used in the quilt.

When I received the quilt back from Diana, very satisfied with the quilting, there was still something not quite right. It was then that I decided to add the red beads to the stamen and the Chinese characters for lily. I did some research on the characters but finally relied on a friend, who had lived in China for quite a few year's to write them for me.

Finally I felt the piece was finished.