So, “the reveal” of the raffle quilt was today.  That means I can share pictures of the finished product.  I’ve given you a couple of tastes of it before, but here is the whole thing.

And, here are a few close ups.  The fans at the top in the pillow topper are hand appliqued with embroidery added.  There is taupe piping along the edge of the big kimono block/medallion in the center to go along with the thinner taupe colored inside border.  I learned from quilter Cathy Wiggins that you should repeat your colors or fabrics elsewhere within your quilt, so you should have them 2 or more times.   I was trying to pick up the taupe in the outer border fabric, so that’s how I wound up with the inner border and then the piping.  You might notice several different fabrics for a scrappy look. I saw that outer border and knew it would be the basis of the quilt, so I pulled as many indigo fabrics as I could find that would go with it.  And, of course I needed to pull that rose color in from the border fabric as well, so that’s how I wound up with the fabric for the Kanji and sleeves of a couple of kimonos (cream background with cherry blossoms).   A lot of these fabrics are Kona Bay fabrics (http://konabay.com) that I bought from the a local quilt store, Quilter’s Haven (www.quiltershaven.com), in Olathe, Kansas.  They have quite the variety of Asian fabrics.

The appliqued Kanji symbols say “Health, Weath, & Happiness.”  So, that is what the quilt is named.   Putting this quilt together was quick.  What seemed to take forever was the quilting.  In an earlier post I demonstrated a couple of strategies I used for marking designs onto it.  There are lots of ways to mark for quilting.  Quilters like to say, “If you can draw it, you can quilt it.”  Of course, I like to say, “If you can trace a design from a Dover copyright-free book, you have a quilting design.”  I got the designs for the motifs on the kimonos from a couple of Dover clip art books.  If you know anything at all about me, you know I like to sneak fun stuff into my quilting, so I have lots of Dover books in my stash to use for ideas.

Hope you enjoyed the “quilt” show!