Bloggers' Quilt Festival Fall 2014: Liberty Goes to the Circus

I do so enjoy the Bloggers' Quilt Festival hosted by Amy Ellis twice a year at Amy's Creative Side. She rounds up great sponsors and creates a fantastic online quilt show for our viewing and inspiration. It's wonderful!

My BQF entry this year - in the Large Quilt category - is called Liberty Goes to the Circus.

I was gifted a half-dozen packages of Liberty of London tana lawn fat quarters by my neighbour who's in the clothing design business. He'd had them hanging around in his office for a while and one day offered them to me. I could barely squeak out a thank you, knowing what I did about how precious Liberty fabric is.

I paired each FQ with a coordinating Kona solid...

...and used this tutorial to create a total of 42 St. Louis 16-patch blocks. I hoped that the brightness of the solids would unify the disparate patterns and backgrounds of the various Liberty fabrics.

I do believe the solids did their job of unifying the whole thing. Having said that, however, I'm reminded of my sister and brother-in-law's first home that had different coloured carpet in every room in the house (colours included burgundy, purple and royal blue) and she commented that it seemed like the previous owners used "Circus" as inspiration when they were choosing their décor theme. Which is why I'm calling this Liberty Goes to the Circus.

The quilt is the biggest I've made - 87"x101" and I wasn't able to use my usual strategy of pinning the quilt to the wooden arbours in our courtyard (seen above) for photography purposes. Instead, I had my husband hang it over the railing of our top balcony.

It's free-motion quilted with an neutral(ish) Aurifil thread in 40 wt (colour 2324) in a petal/leaf motif in each square.

The backing is a fabulous Martha Negley print plus a little bit of Jay McCarroll Habitat and an extra block.

I was originally going to use a dark solid of some kind as binding, but instead I went with a favourite "neutral" of mine - Kona Curry. It is a surprisingly versatile shade, and provides a nice pop of colour there (like this thing needs more colour ha ha) along the edge. Plus, this lighter shade will wear a little more nicely than a darker fabric that will fade after many washings.

I puffy heart love this quilt, and it's mine alllll mine. Except when the kid steals it for afternoon reading/snuggling purposes.

Thanks for stopping by for the Bloggers' Quilt Festival! This quilt is entered in the Large Quilt category.