Blue Lotus

I’ve had a placeholder for this quilt since September 2010, but researching the fabric for this quilt has taken some time. Quilting companies are rather faddish in what prints and motifs they put out at any given time, and Egyptian-themed fabrics haven’t been made available in about 10-15 years. It’s meant we’ve been trawling for quarter-yards of fabric from all over the globe.

[‘A sense of scale’]

We have found a wide variety of fabrics, including more artistic impressions of Egyptian motifs, from a long out of print British Museum fabric:

[‘DSC05105’]

…to much more stylized fabrics from Blank Textiles:

[‘All we have…’]

to more monochromatic prints:

[‘Egyptian Pharaoh fabric’]

There’s lots of detail, lots of gold overprinting, and an overall sand-brown-green color palette, with occasional splashes of turquoise. I’ve been struggling with a pattern that would work for these fabrics, because the prints are large — and varying sizes — and they need to be kept at least mostly intact. However, just cutting the repeats apart and sewing them together will make for both a busy and uninteresting quilt.

I strongly suspect we have enough for at least two quilts, once coordinating solids are added in.

It’s a tasty challenge. It’s also a bit nerve-wracking. When you’ve chased down fabric from England and Australia, you become incredibly hesitant to cut into the fabric because you know there’s no more available if you screw up the first time.

So I’ve waited, and I’ve deliberated, and I think I’ve shown this box of fabric to just about everyone.

• ‹ previous
• 1589 of 1674
• next ›