Muddy Prairie

It all started with a fabric. Two years ago, while at the International Quilt Festival in Chicago, I found this fabric:

It's just irises, right? Well, yes... but, there's more to it. I love irises, not just because they're a beautiful flower. I love them because when I was little, maybe around ten years old, my best friend and I would play in this abandoned field, affectionately known as "the Prairie." The pair of us had vivid imaginations and invented an entire fantasy world there, complete with magical quests, spells and evil sorcerers. We played there for hours at a time.

Every spring, as the snow melted, the Prairie would flood with melt water and, in the middle of what seemed like a lake of puddles, a bunch of wild irises would bloom. We would forge our way, as best we could, over logs, hurdling puddles, searching out the driest spots, until we reached those flowers. We would pluck one or two each for our mothers and then attempt to extricate ourselves from the mud. Invariably, we came home with mud up to our knees. I remember stamping my velcro shoes all the way down the block in order to get as much mud as possible off, but always managed to track it in the house.

So irises always make me think of this friend and those days and the Prairie. I knew when I bought the fabric that I would eventually make her a quilt. I started collecting fabrics around that one. I tossed over many pattern ideas and eventually realized that I needed something that would showcase the fabrics and not cut them up too small. After playing with EQ7 for a while, I came up with this:

It's a simple pattern and took me less than a week to put together. I cut all of the fabrics for the top in a couple hours and sewed the center of the top in one night. The second night I cut and sewed on the borders and then layered the "sandwich." It took me two nights to quilt it and one more to bind it and attach the label.
I used a varigated thread for the quilting and I free-handed those leaves on my sewing machine. I do not have a longarm quilter, but I have just this year gotten over my fear of free-motion quilting and am starting to really enjoy the process.

A label is a pretty personal thing and normally not something I would share, but in this case I'll make an exception.

Those words at the bottom that look like they're made up... well they are. That's a spell that we made up and somehow I've never forgotten. Did I mention we had vivid imaginations? :)