Luanna Rubin | Evening in the Garden Quilts

This is one of those quilts that is hard to photograph because of the contrast in the colors, but up close those rich, dark boxes are really very interesting, something someone can look at for a while.

Some of the darks are brown and navy prints from the “Japan” line by Robert Kaufman. I love them, but they never went with anything else. The one with the gold overprinting is “Cultivated Cottons” from Andover. There’s some “Madrona Road” orange in there, and a couple of In the Beginning fabrics I forgot to check before I cut up

I’m happy with the way the back came out. It’s very warm looking, with all those browns, but also very interesting.

The quilting… I like what it did, but I wish it were a little more accurate. It does give a lot of texture. It also brings the aqua back into it and brightens it up. I guess I am just used to using very fine, blending thread, so this looks pretty bold to me, but there it is. All in all I’m happy with it.

I’m sending this off to Luanna’s 5000 quilts for Hurricane Sandy campaign. I know it’s almost spring, but there’s still a lot of cold weather, and they keep running out of quilts.

I’m linking up to Finish it up Friday at Crazy Mom Quilts.

Low volume, schmo volume! I’m excited to be diving into rich colors again! I’m putting together another quick donation quilt for the east coast. Luanna posted this update yesterday on quilt distribution to Sandy victims, and I realized how many people are still without heat or their own homes. I already sent one, but sitting here warm and dry with all this stash makes me feel that sending one more wouldn’t hurt.

Knowing your stash really helps. I could visualize most of the fabrics I wanted to use for this. I have so much floral, not really sure why, so lots of things turn out very feminine. I wanted to make this deeper, suitable for anyone, though I didn’t completely avoid florals. I really did dive in to choose, cut, and stitch these blocks without over thinking them, and I’ve really enjoyed working with these great prints and colors. I know the blocks merge a bit and are rather dark. I think the quilting I want to do in turquoise thread and the light brown border will lighten it up a bit. Yes, it’s exactly like my Quilt of Valor and Quilt for Husband, but with these colors it will really look different, and that large orange and aqua floral couldn’t be cut up any smaller, could it? Nope.