Welcome to my 250th blog post – I am so glad you are reading my blog. Thank you!
Today, I’m going to tell you the story of the ‘Colours of Mexico’ quilt.
The inspiration for this quilt came from a visit to the city of Oaxaca in Mexico.
I was in Mexico to visit my daughter, who lived there for almost a year, working at the Universidad Tecnologica del Norte de Guanajuato. She and her husband organised a trip which included a couple of nights in Oaxaca. We visited the textile museum and a white blouse with an embroidered yoke, worked in cross-stitch caught my eye. The vibrancy of the different colours so close to each other was so effective.
I had squared paper and pencil crayons with me in Mexico, so while sitting on the roof terrace of a hostel in Mexico City, I began to sketch out some ideas for a quilt. I wanted to reflect the bright colours I had seen everywhere in Mexico, in the colours of exterior house walls, pottery, carpets and elsewhere.
There is quite a leap from a pencilled sketch to finalising a design and then making the quilt. I found a quilt block which worked with the star-shape I wanted and tried it out. These are big blocks: each is 20 x 20″. I then tried out the colour combinations for each block and picked materials for a multi-colour border. Once all the blocks were complete, they were laid out on a flat surface and moved round until the composition looked right. The quilt top was made and then I hung it up to check the overall effect. One block wasn’t quite perfect colour-wise, so it was un-picked, re-stitched and re-inserted.
I love this quilt, it is so vibrant and cheerful, I think I will keep it forever. It was hanging on the wall of my studio for a while as you can see in the photo below. It’s big enough for a king-size bed (90 x 90″) and pretty much covered one studio wall completely.
It has taken a while, but at last a pattern for the quilt is available. You can find it in the Amanda Jane Textiles Etsy shop by clicking on the caption under the pattern cover below.
Thank you for reading my blog. Quilt patterns are here, Fabrics are here, Classes are here.