Each year I like to enter a quilt in The National Quilt Museum’s New Quilts From an Old Favorite contest.
This year the traditional block that our quilt was to represent was the “Carolina Lily.”
I was stunned when I received a call recently that my quilt “Only a Lily” had won 1st place. And then I got all giddy and had to call some family and friends and share my good news.
When my sister, Emily, started making some quilts using Gloria Loughman’s technique from her book “Radiant Landscapes,” I loved the effect.
So, I bought a book too and studied it and decided to make a ‘lily’ quilt to practice for my entry.
I was pleased with how “Lily” turned out and decided to use the technique for my entry.
So, I found a piece of fabric that I thought would work good for the background …
… and I cut red and green squares of 2 other pieces of fabric. I traced off a motif of the traditional Carolina Lily pattern onto the squares …
… and cut them out.
When Emily saw my little bits of scraps left over she decided to make another small art quilt using them in the sky of her “Setting Sage” quilt.
I thought it marvelous and decided to change my background to the same yellow that she had chosen. But alas, it didn’t have the same effect that hers did.
So I went back to my original choice of background fabric and I loved what I saw.
Here, I have added a black border with slight curves.
Then I cut out ‘lily’ parts and laid them on the background. Deciding which lily I liked best was a hard choice.
When all the fusing was finished I was ready to quilt.
And after the quilting was finished the quilt wanted to wobble, ripple, and pucker up.
But that didn’t cause me too much worry as it all flattened out when I blocked it with lots of water.
And then I added the piping and binding and blocked it again.
Only a Lily
56 1/2” X 56 1/2”
“I am only … a [humble] lily of the valleys [that grows in deep and difficult places]. … Like the lily among thorns, so are you …” –Song of Solomon 2:1, 2 (Amplified)
Detail
