The last quilt, "Mans' Fans" was, believe it or not, my first commission quilt. The gentleman in question (a male opera singer - a "divo") had requested a throw quilt for his bedroom, and the fabrics for Mans' Fans had been chosen with that room in mind. As you know, I wasn't particularly fond of how that one turned out.

Thankfully, sight unseen, the gentlemen in question said one night over dinner with friends "Kit's making me a beautiful quilt for my living room. I imagine all in reds...." I and my then-fiancee were quite surprised by that statement, but I was really also quite grateful. I could go back to the drawing board, and I did.

His statement "all in reds" sparked my imagination, and I wandered the aisles of fabric stores pulling complementary shades of red in all kinds of fabrics. Chenille, silk, broadcloth, cotton jersey, batik, even lamé made its way home with me, in shades from watermelon to cherry.

I planned a very simple block of 21/2 wide strips in varying lengths,



and got busy cutting fabric.

I whipped through those very simple blocks in less than five hours, and added a crisp red silk taffetta border and back.



I thought that the quilting on this one would be really fast and simple. I planned to stitch in the ditch on the rectangles and stipple the borders, which I assumed would be “easy peasy”. Not so much, it turned out.

The in the ditch stitching was realtively simple - if you didn't allow for the movement of all those different kinds of fabric, that is. *ahem* I quilted those rectangles in watermelon red cotton thread.

I had decided to quilt the taffeta borders with metallic thread because I thought it would be very beautiful, but the thread kept stretching, pulling and breaking, no matter how much or how frequenltly I adjusted the tension. It was fantastically difficult and a great exercise in patience! Towards the end of the project though, I hit on the idea of putting the metallic thread in the bobbin, and quilting “upside down” (i.e. quilting the design on the back of the quilt, not the front). For a newbie quilter such as I (it was only my second experience in actual quilting!) it was extremely challenging, but I finally got it done, and I was really pleased with how it turned out.




Readers beware though, I’ve since read that the manufacturer of the metallic thread I used (Coates) specifically recommends against putting the thread in the bobbin.

Oops!

But, in the end, it all turned out as it should,




And it’s nearly as saucy as he is!