The Treasure Box

My quilty fairy godmother, Patty, recently loaned me her copy of Quilt Dad's book, Beyond Neutral (which features a lovely quilt made with her Les Amis collection). One of the things that struck me right off the bat was his use of large pieces of fabric within his quilts. In his introduction to the Triton Cove quilt he says:

"I'm a big fan of fabric. A big, big fan. And admittedly, many of my projects begin with the desire to cut into and use a particular fabric or fabric line. I tend to create blocks and quilt layouts that show off the prints, patterns, and textures of my favorite fabrics so the quilts become long-term ways for me to continue enjoying the fabric designs that I so love...My recommendation? Stop collecting and hoarding your favorite fabrics and make something from them instead."

the squirrel scrap was leftover from my first quilt

The issue of hoarding fabric hit home with me. There are fabrics I buy and scraps I hang onto, refusing to use until I can find a project "worthy" of them. More often than not, they stay unused. I had hope to use more of them in my Scatterbrain quilts, but I worried that these precious pieces wouldn't shine once they were trapped in the chaos. And unlike Quilt Dad who uses large pieces of never-cut fabric, I have lots of small special pieces in addition to the big ones.

it took me months to finally find this Prince Charming

I needed a way to use both the large and small pieces of treasured fabric. I started sketching, and pretty soon I had the layout for The Treasure Box. The pattern uses eight 8" squares for the large scale prints, eight 8" "treasure blocks" for the small scraps, and twenty-eight 2" squares for the corner borders. I'm working on preparing a pattern, which will hopefully be completed within the coming week. 

there's treasure everywhere.

I did a meandering stitch for the quilting, which was so much fun to do on Brienne, my Juki. I used rayon Sulky thread instead of my usual 100% cotton because I wanted something a bit more delicate and shiny. I like that it generates barely any lint. With cotton thread, I find myself having to brush off my needle bar because lint builds up so quickly. I think I may start trying out new kinds of thread and see where it takes me.

Name: The Treasure Box
Size: 48 x 48"
Fabric: All the precious fabrics I hold dear. Lots of Heather Ross/Munki Munki, Tula Pink, Patty Sloniger, Sarah Watts, and more.
Pattern: The Treasure Box (by me!)
Quilting: Meandering
Completed: June 14, 2014