The pattern is Painted Ladies by Eye Candy Quilts
I first saw this quilt on Barbara’s blog, Cat Patches. That would have been in 2022 or 2023 because I purchased the pattern in 2022.
I knew it would be perfect for my “waste” fabrics. These are fabrics that I used to use a dye dams when I dyed my gradient fabrics for the shop. I’d fold the width of fabric in thirds, twist it up and put one on each side of the gradient in the bin. They helped stop the dye migrating along the edges of the fabric. These turned into some of my favorite fabric bits because of the great texture in them. I immediately saw them as the houses in this quilt. I pulled a big selection of “solid” hand dyes for the roof pieces.
You can see that I had a great time picking the building, roof and door fabrics. Fir the “sky” I dyed 6 steps of a grayed purple to create light in the upper left, transitioning to dark in the lower right.
I used 12 colors of threads to quilt the houses. I have way too much thread so I was very happy to use lots of different thread colors on this quilt. These are Superior Rainbows and Magnifico polyester threads. I enjoy doing ruler work and I selected straight lines so that the quilting didn’t compete with the textured fabric.
The background is quilted in a swirly design to provide contrast to all the straight lines and to give a bit of a cloud/wind effect. I used 3 colors of purple So Fine thread to blend in with shades of purple in the background.
I dyed the backing in a bright green gradient.I don’t really know why I picked green but I’m really happy with it.
I used 2 shades of green thread on the back and I was very lucky/happy to have perfect tension. None of the thread colors from the top show on the back and none of the green shows on the front. I think the quilting texture looks really good on the back.
The binding is top-stitched on the front of the quilt. I usually just do some straight stitching but I wanted it more decorative this time and chose a blanket stitch. This took a surprisingly long time to do…about 3 hours. It was worth it.
This quilt doesn’t have a destination home yet but I’m sure it will find just the right place eventually. It was a fun one to make.
