Ode to Spring Quilt Series

 You might recall that I dedicated January of this year to finishing my big pile of unfinished projects. I was plowing along nicely, but the weather didn’t cooperate.

When I decided to embark on the UFO-busting project back in December, I imagined myself sitting in my sewing room on cold, wet winter days, looking at the rain and enjoying the warmth of hearth, hot beverage and cloth. In reality, however, January was dry and warm, spring like. Some days the temperature even went up to the higher seventies. So I couldn’t just stay inside the entire time. The garden was calling. I went out to garden.

When in the sewing room, though, I stuck to UFOs. Until February came by, that is. Another month of warm and dry. I kept finishing UFOs, in between gardening days, but the spring flowers blooming in my garden–in the middle of winter, no less–also propelled me to start a new quilt series. I worked on it in between UFOs, and called it Ode to Spring.

Ideas for quilts come about in different ways. Some quilts I plan long in advance, and take even longer to execute. Interdependent, for example, took almost six months to complete. Sometimes I plan a quilt series, but it takes several years before I actually get to it, if at all. I’ve been meaning to make a series about The Seven Lives of Trini, following the quilt I made for my sister, to try different techniques. I might eventually get to it. Or not… Some quilts happen quickly. Something triggers an idea, and I have to make it a reality right away. Let the Mending Begin jumped into my head while listening to Joe Biden’s victory speech, for example, as did Enough!, which followed yet another mass shooting. They both came together rather quickly.

Somewhere in my very messy sewing room there lies an actual list, pen on paper, with quilt ideas I want to try. Some have been on the list for a while. I thought I’ll refer to that list (if I can find it, that is), once I complete the UFOs. But then the Ode to Spring series popped out, as if from nowhere, and pushed itself to the top of the list. I wasn’t planning to make this series. I’m not exactly sure where it came from. All I know is that it was there one day, forcing me to take a break from the UFOs, becoming the first new series of 2021.

The quilts in this series are flower-inspired yet abstract. They are all 13″ x 17.” While making them, I enjoyed playing with vibrant fabric colors, and also indulged in my new, colorful 12-weight thread. All four quilts incorporate a strip of yellow silk I had left over from one of my UFO totes. They all have six repeating leaf shapes, and are all quilted in various-sized straight grids. One day I will mount them all onto canvases…

Magenta Arctotis

Amethyst Centaurea

Golden Arctotis

Red African Daisy

And here they are, all together. Ode to Spring quilt series, my first series of 2021.

Which of the four do you like best?