May Day! Baskets o' Fun

 

Hey look!  It's a quilt!  Yep, made by me, started and finished in the last few months!  I know. I can hardly believe it myself.

I've been a stalker groupie fan of Freddy Moran for many years. When I discovered her and (for a while there) took every class she taught), her approach to color and pattern resonated with me and totally changed the whole quilting game for me.  But it'd been ages since I'd seen her.  So when I learned she was teaching her basket class at a shop in my area, I rustled up a few friends and away we went.

In the class, Freddy demonstrated her approach to making a few different types of wonky baskets.  And by the end of the day, I'd made most of the crazy baskets you see up there in the center of the quilt.  It was a totally fun day and I was so happy to see Freddy in fine form.

I've been in a "using up the stash" mode for a while now, so in the spirit of Freddy and Gwen Marston's "parts department" approach to quilting with scraps, I pulled out blocks I'd done with scraps, and away I went.

I can't remember when I made a pieced quilt by just doing once thing and then deciding "what next" without a big plan.  It was very fun. I don't know how I managed to make all of these blocks without making a visible dent in the scrap bags -- do they multiply, or something?  Ah well, I guess that means there are more "parts department" quilts like this ahead.

I now have this hanging on a wall in my upstairs hallway, so it faces me when I come upstairs. It makes me smile although the teen critic in the house thinks it's too jumbly.  I figure if she can live with the mess in her room, she can handle a bit of jumble on the wall.

Here's a little detail shot, in case you wanted to see up close: