Fall Quilt Festival 2009

When I started this blog, I decided it would be a good way to share my quilts with their stories.  I'm new to blogging, but just found out about the Fall Quilt Festival which is hosted by another blog (Quilt Festival Entries).  A fellow blogger encouraged me to submit an entry and join the festival.  Now, to choose the quilt....


I guess a good story is my Kameleon Day and Night Variation.  Pattern by Eldrid Røyset Førde of Norway (Kameleon Quilt) 


I was a new quilter - only quilting about 6 months - when my husband and I went to a quilt show in Emmett, Idaho.  We were intrigued by this quilt shown by a vendor.  There were gradations of color in four color families.  The quilt has flaps that can be buttoned in different ways, and it dramatically changes how the quilt looks.  

My mother is also a quilter, and I was trying to explain it to her. She couldn't conceptualize a quilt that could change colors after completion. She came to visit me that summer and again we visited the Two Sisters quilt store. I showed her the quilt and bought the pattern. 

Excited now to try this, we went home and studied the directions. The next day we found ourselves at the fabric store making fabric choices. Red and black have been “our theme” for a while so we started there. Choices made - we hurried home ready to begin.


We were an ambitious lot. We looked at the strip quilting method and decided on constructing the quilt that way. We could get two Kameleon quilts out of the fabric - one would be in reverse gradations. 


We assembled all the base blocks for 2 quilts, and cut the flaps for one. The flaps were daunting for me.
Even after figuring out the best way to tackle them, I kept procrastinating.

The next summer my mother visited again, and she encouraged me to finish the flaps.  Then the flaps needed to be quilted, again I procrastinated until another visit from my mother was coming up. I finished the quilting of the flaps, and while she was here we assembled the quilt and marked it for quilting. I was on a roll and got the quilting done.


Next came button selection. I could not find buttons I liked and was reluctant to do fabric covered buttons but finally chose them as the best option. I enlisted the help of my daughter, age 5, and she really enjoyed helping me cover the buttons. I sewed them on and the quilt was finally complete.


It took almost two years from start to finish for the first quilt.

It was a real challenge but I really feel like I have accomplished something. I think I was naive to even attempt this project, but I am happy with my results. Our quilt won 1st place viewer's choice for small quilts at the Tug Hill Quilters Quilt Show in September 2004.


These four pictures are just four of the options of ways to display this quilt.  There are over 500 geometric ways to button and display this quilt, thousands more possibilities if you aren't concerned about balance.


Here are a couple of pictures of the companion quilt - all the same fabrics, just in the reverse order.