I’d like to kick off my new blog with a post about one of my latest quilts, Plaza Window. This quilt was made by me to participate in the Kansas City Modern Quilt Guild‘s Mirror Ball Dot Challenge.
The challenge was to take the fabric we were given by Michael Miller (thanks!) and use it to make a quilt that was at least 40″ on each side using a photo from Kansas City’s Country Club Plaza. Each participant was given 4 fat quarters of fabric: 2 fat quarters of mirror ball dots and 2 fat quarters of cotton couture. If you haven’t used the cotton couture yet, do! It’s got a slight shimmer to it and an absolutely lovely hand. It might be my new favorite solid!
The plaza is a very architecturally interesting place. The buildings there have so much detail. When this challenge was announced I instantly thought I would use one of the really interesting towers on a building there and dissect it into it’s plan view to create something really interesting and geometrical. Well, I took the photos of all the things I thought would work for my idea and after drafting various things that didn’t work like I was hoping, I came back to this photo of the window above a restaurant.
The window in this photo was the inspiration for my quilt.
I loved the shape of the window. I loved how the window had a definite frame and was infilled with more intricate designs that are a little bit hard to see.
This is the quilt top I designed. It measures 48″x48″. All the solids used were from the cotton couture line and the printed fabrics are mirror ball dots.
The quilting on this quilt was designed to embellish the piecing of the top. I used a variety of designs and tried to mimic some of the ironwork that is found on many of the buildings in the plaza.
The printed fabric on the back is something I came across in the nursery section at JoAnn’s.
You can see all of the quilts made for this challenge here.
Jess Toye Quilts 