Red and White...

I've been working on and off on this quilt for... at least 7 years.  My friend, Sandy, made the little redwork dolls on her embroidery machine.  I wasn't sure what I was going to do with them but I loved them.  There is a little boy and a little girl for each month of the year. (This one is June bride.)  I love anything that is reminiscent of the 30-40's.  The blocks are relatively small so I sashed them in a solid red. Then began the search for white and red fabrics- and red and white fabrics. Don't you like fabric shopping with a project in mind?  I collected fat quarters from all over the country- as far away as Oregon. Then I decided on a stack the deck design and started in on those scrappy crazy quilt looking blocks.  Put them together with the dolls... something was missing.  With me, it tends to be busy is better.  Up to a point.  It seems a lot of modern quilts have mixtures of same scale fabrics and they look really muddy.  I can't figure out what's the point to all that cutting and sewing if it's just going to look like a single fabric. I used to make quite a few "word" quilts and when I found this little poem by George Ellis representing all 12 months, I knew I had to incorporate it into the quilt. That process took a while.  I'd put them away and drag them out periodically, but it definitely was the longest part of the quilt.  Overall, I'm very happy with it.  It was taking me so long to make that I told Eva(20y) that she could have it as a wedding quilt.  But it looks like I got it done ahead of schedule.