Dutch Rose
I designed and made this quilt around 1987. I was inspired by a quilt by Dianne Duncan Thomas which I saw in the Quilt Art '86 calendar. My quilting buddy Ruth Enoch made the quilt along with me. I am proud to say her version of the quilt won first place in the Mixed Techniques, Large Bed Size, Hand Quilted Category at the National Quilting Association Show that was held in Little Rock in 1988.
We were both obsessed with border prints and cutting identical parts of the fabrics to create kaleidoscope designs. We used this method to make the patterns in the center and corner blocks. The now popular Stack-n-Whack by Bethany Reynolds uses this same concept. However rather than stack the fabric we used a clear template to carefully cut out the same part of the design eight times to make a kaleidoscope pattern in each of the stars. This is called fussy cutting. This lent itself well to the Dutch Rose Block a.k.a. Carpenter's Wheel Block, another one of our obsessions.
I made this bed-sized quilt for my sister Leslie Boyce Curran and her husband Bob as a present for their new home. They used it on their bed for many years so the colors have faded a bit and the fabric has worn but I am pleased that 21 years later I was able to borrow it to take a picture of it to show some of my early work. Years of experience have caused me to look at this old quilt with a critical eye. I am please to say that the only major change I would have made would be to make the vines in the inner border a different color so it would have shown up.
The quilt is 80" x 90". It is hand pieced, appliquéd, and quilted.
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