A couple of years ago, Ruth invited me to a wonky house swap on Flickr. I was at a loss what to make because Ruth, Sil and Sandy are expert wonky house designers. After a short while of thinking over many ideas, I decided to make 12 castles. I have loved castles since I was a little child, reading about the brave men and women defending the stronghold. I have quite often arranged our travel plans around cities with castles in them. So it was an easy choice for me and my swap-mates loved the idea. Along with the 4″ blocks that I made for them, I also made these 10″ blocks.
I found these three fabrics of different colours with foliage prints on them. I used the same white for the sashing and the binding, and other two for the two borders. I was reading a short story at the time which may have influenced my choice of putting foliage around the castles.
I quilted the main part with a yellow variegated thread and the outer border with a teal variegated thread. I didn’t want to add extra colour to the inner border, so I used a white thread for that one.
back of the quilt
Last weekend we drove up Napa Valley to the Culinary Institute Of America. The college is in a magnificent stone building surrounded by lichen and moss-covered stone walls. I knew I had to take my castle quilt there for a photo since the day I first clapped eyes on it.
Once we found a quiet spot my poor husband crouched down behind the quilt while holding it up for me. I took at least 10-12 shots with a manual focus lens (a lengthy process) before I decided I didn’t like any of them. So he found a way to anchor the quilt on the wall. Although I said I didn’t like the photo, I decided to show the photo anyway!
The campus of the Culinary Institue of America has many magnolia trees and all of them were in full bloom. We walked around the campus for a little while, admiring these gorgeous flowers before driving to Calistoga, the neighbouring city nearby, for some pastry and coffee. It was a perfect day!
Links to individual castle quilt patterns –
-Soma
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