I am making a small quilt for one of my oldest, bestest friends to use on her futon bed. It is a very nice bed and I think this quilt will brighten up her guest room The geisha panel, part of which is the opening picture, is from the Imperial Collection 16 by Robert Kaufman, as are a lot of the fabrics I used. That is part of the fun of this story. Come on in.
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In November last year, I went to a yard sale of quilting supplies from passed/past members and bought all the Japanese fabric they had. There was not a lot of any of it but there was a lot of it combined. I also bought a pattern book of Japanese quilts. I had no plans for any of it but it was a bargain.
A few months ago, I toured my BFF’s new condo and told her I would make a quilt for her futon, that I had a tote full of Japanese print fabrics. Then a month ago, I happened to see this geisha panel at M & L and thought it would be pretty to use.
I cut the geisha out of the printed frames and saved the cut off sashing.
I made this 12 ½ in square with the bits and then made (8) 4 ½ in half square triangles that became corner stones. They also determined the width of the sashing and borders in the finished top.
There were 8 geisha so I made 7 kimono of the same size. I was amazed to see how well all the fabrics I had matched the panel so the kimono were just right. While I was looking for a picture of the panel for this story when I started the quilt, I found that it and the fabrics I bought last year were from the same release of a line! They were meant to be together all along and used me as a conduit to reunite. I was gobsmacked by the signs and omens in my life once again.
These are the blocks, 12 ½ in square.
Here is a close up of each type.
Here is the finished top.
I had to piece fabric for the back so I went ahead and made it interesting. (One could use this as reversible if one liked Kafe Fassett.)
I hope to get to the quilting tomorrow. I plan to do simple straight stitching, not quite in the ditch. I don’t need to free motion any of it, the fabrics are the stars and the stitching is purely structural. I will bind it in black and will post it when it is finished.
Thank you for reading this long worded diary. There is a lot going on with this quilt that has nothing to do with its physical being, there seems to be serendipity involved, as so often happens with me. Or maybe it is just my approach to life.