a quilt for a friend -

Well over a year ago, I was asked to make a quilt for a friend from the job I had in the 1990's. He wanted a wall-sized piece for his wife, who likes hummingbirds. He also asked me to incorporate the color purple and his wife's initials. He wanted an art piece -- so this was almost like a traditional quilt "challenge" where quilters try to stretch their creativity and skill to do something out of the box for them.

I spent time over the next year thinking about how I wanted to incorporate his elements into a unique piece. And then not finding the fabric I wanted to convey the shimmering feathers of the moving hummingbird, I finally came up with this design. The applique area is created from colors inspired by a desert sunset picture because my friend and his wife live in Arizona and he often talked about enjoying the skies there since retiring. There's a guitar silhouetted in the background of the bird because he plays and writes guitar music. The technique for using value to create a layered image based on an unrelated background design is from Katie Pasquini Masopust. I included 6 traditional quilt blocks (the yellow areas with purple triangles) because I'm a traditional quilter first. These are called Belle of Baltimore - I picked them because his wife is from Maryland and I like the strong repetition they add.
Those little blocks are only about 4.5 inches across. The dark purple background is doupioni silk, which I have been wanting to quilt with since I bought the long arm machine. Click on the image to see some of the extensive feathered quilting designs on the bird and the silk background.