A "stash" quilt

This is the quilt top I had been working on most recently. I used all stash fabrics for it - a stack of pink and green fat quarters I didn't really have anything planned for, some leftover pieces of the "Dimples" fabric, and a few odds and ends that I had hanging around.

It's not the prettiest quilt top I've ever made, I think, but there's still something kind of nice about it. It's an ugly duckling, quilt, I think.



I used the pattern called "Citrus" in the February 2011 "American Patchwork and Quilting" magazine. The original quilt, designed by Ann Weber, had muted orange, lime, and yellow prints (hence the name) and all-black sashing, so it was considerably toned down compared to this quilt.

(In a way, perhaps, this quilt is a bit like Penny Garcia on "Criminal Minds," compared to women on other cop shows...bright and loud and doesn't really care that she's different.)

You can't really see it in the quilt (I couldn't get a good close-up, you'll see why in the next photo), but there are some bits of those goofy "Woodland Friends" fabrics with deer, and one with cross-sections of tree stumps and ants, and another with goofy birds on it...the fabrics are all very bright and rather eccentric in their patterns. But I kind of like it.

I'm not sure how I'm going to quilt this one. I think it's probably one to be sent out for an all-over "pantograph" type design of loops or flowers or something, though perhaps it would also be interesting to see it hand-quilted in the old "Baptist fan" pattern. (I think that would be funny - a very traditional, very old-school quilting design on this rather loud modern quilt).

The reason I couldn't get a good close-up is one of the minor mysteries of life that I've found: there can be not a breath of a breeze outside, until I step out with my camera and my quilt and some clothespins, and then suddenly the wind comes up.



Bonus in the photographs: my nice new fence! I had been planning on getting the fence between my house and my neighbor's house replaced, just hadn't gotten around to it, and I saw them out working in the yard one day and sort of apologetically commented that I knew the fence needed fixing (seriously: one day one of the boards gave way and one of their dogs squeezed over into my yard, and I had to herd her back through the hole in the fence). They said they were planning on having the rest of their fence (it goes around all their backyard) done, did I want to go halfsies on the cost of that portion of the fence.

Well, of course. For one thing - one big thing - that meant I didn't need to call around, and try to find a good person, and get the necessary permits lined up or ANYTHING. So all I had to do was write a check for my portion of the cost, and they had the guys out early last week - it really only took 2 or 3 days - and now I have a new fence. Also, they're taking care of getting it water sealed when the time comes for that.

(These neighbors - a cop and his wife, and maybe one of their grown kids (? I can't tell if she lives with them or just comes by a lot) and a single woman cop who lives in the garden apartment - are fantastic neighbors, especially as compared with the House Full of Buffoons I lived next door to back in 2003 or thereabouts. I remember shortly after these neighbors moved in, the then-high-school-aged son of the family had a party in the backyard...it was a Friday night so I wasn't too concerned about if it went late and kept me up. But then, at 10 pm sharp, the music turned off, the lights went off, and they stopped bouncing the basketball around. I figured then that I had good neighbors and it's been pretty true all along)