2012 Auction Quilt Revealed

And the winner was .... author Dorothy St. James! Dorothy has previously written in several genres as Dorothy McFalls. Now she has a mystery series out (book 3 is due in April) centered around Casey Calhoun, the White House Gardener.

When Dorothy won the Brenda Novak Auction for Diabetes Research last May, she only had covers for two of her books in the trilogy. I was happy to wait until she received the 3rd cover before beginning work on her quilt. In the end we agreed I'd start after the holidays; I finished it last week and shipped it to her. Now that I have word that it safely arrived I can show it off.

Essentially I chose to mimic the look of a triple picture frame. The covers themselves are beautiful, but busy. So I decided to go simple and drew inspiration from the White House and the color red to symbolize the fact that the books are murder mysteries. I found a fabulous white batik fabric with very subtle blue, yellow, green, and pink shading. You might be able to see it by enlarging one of the pictures below. Next I needed a narrow dark border. I was going to go with a dark green, but Dorothy suggested blue as it would give a patriotic theme. Brilliant call on her part! It pulls the blues out of the covers; there's already plenty of green and the blue I found transitions nicely into the pretty soft floral fabric I wanted to use for the outer border.


Here are some close-ups of the quilting. There are simple little daisies in the cornerstones and leaves in the sashing. I practiced those leaves like crazy before finally putting them in the quilt. I am thrilled with how they turned out.

There is no quilting in the bookcovers. I didn't want to detract from the pictures. Instead I used a fusible fleece and added an extra layer of batting to stabilize the covers and they puff out a bit.

And here are some views of the back.


My thanks to Dorothy for bidding on my quilt and for her enthusiastic participation in the project. May 1 is only 35 days away and I'm offering a t-shirt quilt again. Please bid, or share my item with your friends.



Comments

  1. ChristineMarch 27, 2013 at 3:58 PM

    That came out great, Phyl! Just gorgeous!!!!
    I can't believe it's almost auction time again!

    ReplyDelete
  2. WendyMarch 28, 2013 at 7:45 PM

    I've been looking forward to seeing who the winner was! Great job Phyl!

    ReplyDelete
  3. PhylMarch 29, 2013 at 5:21 PM

    Thanks Christine and Wendy! I appreciate it. I've been anxious to share the news for ages. I'm glad I finally can--and that I get a small breather before the next auction.

    ReplyDelete

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