Finally Finished my Ode to Asia

I started this quilt last year, and finally finished it yesterday. The design is roughly some pattern I once saw in a quilting magazine, but I have since lost the magazine, and then I just made it all up. The back is almost as perfect as the front, actually, I do rather find it more interesting. The ladies at the quilt guild always show there quilts, then they turn them around and show the back, and say "oh I just threw the rest of the fabric together on the back..." Well laudeedau for them. Piecing that back easily took longer, and definitely more Math skills than the front ever did. I had the piece quilted by Kathy Gyles and I think she did a great job. The larger squares have lotus blossoms - and the rest is bamboo.

Kati's Quilt

This summer I bit the bullet and finally started working on Kati's quilt. This is a drawing that I had Kati due when I was in a textile's class at KU. After she made the drawing on a large sheet of butcher paper, I traced the image with black resist on cotton. Between the 2 of us we then painted it with thickened dyes. From the start I loved it. I loved it so much I was terrified to work on it. With the help of Kris Barlow, I put together the top, and decided to quilt it on a long arm. Kris taught me how to long-arm, and together we used the same drawing ideals that Kati used, and I quilted it. Yeah. Somewhere there is video - but that is on a memory card that has briefly taken a vacation from my posession.

I even really enjoy the detail that shows up on the back due to the different color of threads. There is a lot of thread on this fabric, but I feel that it doesn't lose the quality and stories of Kati's mark making.