At our January quilt guild meeting we had a wonderful speaker, Nancy Wakefield. Even though her topic, color blindness in quilters, was very interesting and informative, the real stars of the show were her amazing array of quilts. And, as often is the case, one of her quilts grabbed me by the throat and wouldn't let go! It was this gorgeous Courthouse Steps with Floral Applique. I bugged her and wrangled the info out of her (well, actually she shared quite willingly LOL) as to where I might find the pattern. She said it was in a Leisure Arts book called Scrap Quilts. Oooh, I was just sure I had that in my home library. Hmmmm...I searched and searched as soon as I got home from the meeting. I had lots of books with the word "scrap" in the title but not the coveted one. Durn. So I went online to my local library's website--nada. Checked Leisure Arts website--zip. Looked through Amazon.com--no dice. Then over the next few days I looked at every local quilt shop (and some not so local) and every craft store for the elusive book. AAAARRRGGGHHH--it was nowhere to be found. I asked my mini-group buddies to please check their libraries--no luck.
Not to be deterred, I decided to just "improvise". After all, Courthouse Steps is a popular log cabin variation so it would be easy to come up with the basic middle of the quilt. Then the old lightbulb went off in my brain (yes, occasionally that happens) and I remembered a Fons & Porter magazine I had been saving for ages--almost seven years actually. Found it and voila!
Just look at this beauty from the September/October 2002 issue of Love of Quilting. Isn't that something? I remember now why I loved it so much. It is traditional and folk-arty and colorful and fun. And I am so in love with pieced quilts that have an applique border. I will most likely stick with the black and cream and red color scheme as I want it for my bedroom. And I will probably make a wallhanging rather than a bedsized quilt. But it just goes to show you, ratpack tendencies occasionally pay off.
I took Bernie to the "spa" yesterday for her annual treatment (translation: my Bernina is at the Bernina shop for yearly maintenance). I miss her already!!!
