Botanical Gardens
I have always admired the bright colors and floral designs in the fabrics designed by Kaffe Fassett and Philip Jacobs. I began buying their gorgeous fabrics in magenta, red, purple and blue colors about 10 years ago with no idea how I would use them. Once I had collected quite a few fabrics, I selected 7 fabrics of magenta/red and 7 fabrics of purple/blue//green fabrics. Having made several chevron quilts, I wanted to make something similar, yet different. Finally, I decided on a stair step pattern, so the design goes down the quilt on a diagonal.
Originally, I attempted to place one of the floral fabrics with one of Kaffe Fassett Dots fabric, but didn't feel it was the cohesive effect I wanted. When I decided to combine one warm fabric of magenta or red with a cool fabric of blue or purple, I knew it was a winning combination. The pattern is simple, yet the colorful designs in the fabrics make this pattern pop!
The strips are cut 3 inches each, sewing a pink/red strip to a blue/purple strip. Seven red/magenta fabrics and seven blue/purple fabrics were used, thoughtfully placing each strip to make the most of the busyness of the large designs. The quilt measures 72 inches x 80 inches which allows the color combinations to be used twice in the layout.
Several of the discarded blocks are used on the backing, one way to use them up as well as to create an interesting backing fabric.
Joyce Coburn of Coburn's Quilting used a clam shell quilt design on her long arm APQS Millennium machine. One of the Dots fabrics, purple dots on a black background, was used for the binding.
Botanical Gardens
© Jenny Fowler
