A friend who is a quilt shop owner had several fabrics that no one would buy.While each was very pretty, there was no related fabric to help tie them together. Adding to the problem, one was turquoise, one was lime, one was purple and one was orange. There just wasn't an easy way to make a traditional quilt with a purpose or a theme.
I wound up buying a half yard or so of each color, and thinking. What came to me was that they seemed kind of Moroccan...they had an overall exotic feeling to them. After working with the fabrics, particularly the turquoise and orange, and after getting acquainted with the gold metallic embellishment on the fabrics, I started referring to this as The Goldfish quilt. Probably a poor name, as even if you do see the fish shapes, they are starting to look to me more like kissing fish than goldfish!
Starting with a bunch of 2 1/2" strips, I sewed 36" 9-patch squares, and bordered each 9-patch block in 1 1/2" border fabric. I was trying to create a quilt that gave the overall impression of a tapestry...one that would be at home in a street stall in Marrakech or in ancient Baghdad.
The whole quilt was tied together with a purple striped border, again in the same family of fabrics. It is free-motion quilted with swirls to stay with that exotic feeling. The whole quilt has grown on me...I absolutely like the total quilt a lot better than the individual fabrics.
Here is a close up of a portion of the quilt. You can see the 9-patch squares, the borders, and some of the patterns on the fabrics. I'm sure you can see the absolutely strange flowers, the wiggly stripes, and the goldfish on the turquoise fabric! I still think the gold embellishment gives the quilt a richer feel, and I am not sorry I bought the fabric after all...although I suspect the rest of it is still on the bolt at the shop! What do you think you would do with this sort of fabric? Would you have bought any?
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