Why not!

That’s exactly what I said, to no-one in particular, when I read that Amy (of Amy’s Creative Side) was once again holding her Bloggers’ Quilt Festival.

So, inspired by my dear friend Linda’s win – but in no way placing myself in her league! – I’m entering “Alhambra Romance”.

Please excuse me if you’ve seen it before, but since I tend to take the scenic route when I make a quilt I don’t have a huge pile of finished works to choose from, and this one is definitely one of my favourites.

When I offered to make my son and soon-to-be-daughter-in-law a wedding quilt I expected them to ask for a nice, simple modern quilt, not something along the lines of this tiled wall they had seen at the Alhambra in Spain. Gulp!

It’s amazing what a Mum will do out of love for her offspring, and with little more than a deep breath (but with a sinking feeling inside) this mathematically challenged Mum tackled the geometry involved in drawing up a grid for the tile placement on this over-all design that had inspired Escher’s art!

Over a period of around 5 months I hand appliqued each tile onto the single quilt-sized piece of background fabric, leaving narrow spaces in between to look like grouting, and the quilt travelled with me as my handwork on an extended holiday to Greece, Egypt, Jordan, Italy, France and England. Some of those tiles were stitched in places as romantic as a café beside the Grand Canal in Venice, and as unromantic as a hospital in Cairo (don’t ask)!

Finally, I hand quilted around each tile and finished the quilt just in time for their wedding.

I think they liked it!

Now I’m off to check out all the other fantastic quilts in the Bloggers’ Spring Quilt Festival – are you coming too?

 

Di