I just adore this quilt story! It begins with a high school student exchange posting where a delightful student from Germany comes to our little town's high school, and my middlest becomes great friends with her. That friendship has been strong across time and distance, fed with lots of phone calls, virtual contact and a few visits either in Germany or Canada.
Visits to Germany were accompanied by thank-you quilts, to the family for hosting my girl for the visit, for baby quilts, for wedding quilts. This is the latest baby quilt.
The inspiration for this quilt starts with this chair, and an episode of elegant day drinking. The chair is in the little fellow's nursery. The quilt is for a little fellow, son of the friend's sister, who is also very close to my middlest. He had not received his quilt yet, and they had some wonderful suggestions for colour and theme.
We vetted a number of design options. They were hoping for something that could incorporate men's ties, but in hot pink. "Smash the Patriarchy" was a big part of the discussion. Maypoles are a big tradition in Germany. Our final pick for design was the "Maypole", with some of the arms/ribbons of the design altered to signify ties.
My middlest and I raided my stash for pinks and oranges, and also visited local quilt stores to add a few more lovelies.
The pink slash across the middle is a vibrant, "Barbie" hot neon pink.
Each quadrant has one segment converted into a men's tie shape. These were simply improv pieced to have tapered sides, and an angled piece on the bottom.
In a style I've done fairly often, I used a different quilting design in each of the colour areas.
The grey background was all straight line ruler work.
Appliqued in one corner, the text, "Smash the Patriarchy". Hours and hours went into deciding fonts. Cutting out and doing the applique didn't take quite as long as the deciding, lol!
The backing was a fun "Grunge Hits the Spot" in cobalt blue. And of course the binding was done in the neon hot pink.
Hab 'n Dash Glide Hot pink was used for quilting in the colour areas, and grey in the background. Quilters Dream 100% Cotton batting. Packaged up and shipped to Germany.
AND THEN .... the biggest box of chocolates I've seen in my life, arrived on our doorstep!
Two advent calendars full of chocolates, and a giant box filled with all kinds Lindt goodies. To make the saga even more interesting, there was no indication on the box, or the shipping info, or the waybill, of where this box originated, just that it came from Lindt Canada in Toronto. Thankfully my middlest knew who it was from!
Everything about this story makes me smile!