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| Dutch Windmill Quilt |
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| The beautiful back. |
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| Black thread for the black, variegated pink and orange for the windmills. |
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| Proof from where the fabric came. |
Good morning! It is
Bloggers Quilt Festival time again and I've decided to participate this year by showing off the quilt I will probably always love the most of all my quilty children. But, first some details on Bloggers Quilt Festival: Bloggers Quilt Festival is a virtual festival hosted by
Amy's Creative Side and I encourage everyone to go there and look at all the amazing quilts up for display this year. Bloggers Quilt Festival is my kind of festival - you can look at all the amazing quilts while in your pajamas and drinking coffee with a cat on your lap (this may or may not be what I am doing right now).
Now that you are all encouraged to go somewhere else, let me tell you a little about my Dutch Windmills Quilt and why I've decided to put it up for display this year. This quilt consists of fabrics I purchased last year at a fabric store in Amsterdam which specializes in reproduction fabrics. I really wanted to make something to commemorate my trip to the land of Van Gogh, and I felt that a quilt made of these fabrics was absolutely the thing to do. This quilt also marked a series of firsts for me. It was the first time I bought fabric without a pattern directing me how much fabric to buy. It was the first time I made my own pattern (based on a couple windmill patterns I found on line, but adjusted for the flowers in the fabric). It was the first time I used two different colors for the quilting process (I thought black was needed for the black parts, but I didn't want the black to overwhelm the blocks). It was the first time I really tried to put "meaning" into a quilt; fabrics from a place I visited, quilting the windmills with a bit of orange to symbolize the national color of the Netherlands. It was the first quilt I brought to work and showed off to my friends.
Looking back at this quilt, my skills were still a little raw (and they still are now for that matter), and I can see a couple of things that I would do different. But, this is still my favorite quilt of all time; warts and all, I love it. It hangs on a wall in my bedroom and every day I look at it an remember that great store in Amsterdam and the experience of escaping the tour for an hour with a fellow quilter to dash across the city, grab fabric and dash back to the tour. It was so much fun and I love how my quilt tells me that story.
