From the Vault - Pagoda

Welcome to another installment of From the Vault.  In this series,  I pull out an old quilt from one of my plastic tubs in the basement.  Some of these quilts are no longer my style or color palette.  Some I still like quite a bit, but they've been edged out on the main floor by others I like better.

This is one I still like, but don't have room to hang.

I finished this quilt in November 2010.  It's 20 inches wide and 24 inches tall.  

Three things inspired this quilt:

1. The fat quarter batik (used in the center panel) that I didn't want to cut up.
2. I had seen quilts made in sections like this, with beads holding the sections together, and I wanted to try it.
3. Yo-yo fever.  I bought a yo-yo maker and went crazy.  I have oodles more that I haven't used yet.

I free-motioned around the hibiscus motif, then had it ingrained enough that I did the same pattern on the side panels.

The hard part with the beads was finding enough variety that were the same diameter, or in the case of small beads, that added up to the right diameter.

 

When I quilted the two side panels, I made the leaves one-directional, just like they were growing.  The yellow panel has nice parallel edges, but the burgundy panel doesn't - one side has quite an unintended swoop.  When it came time to attach them I found out I had a problem.  I needed to put the burgundy on the right and the yellow on the left in order to balance the colors of the center panel - go look at the first photo and you'll see what I mean.  

That meant I had to turn the burgundy panel upside down because I needed the one parallel side to be the beaded side, in order to make the opening come out even.  So now the leaves are growing down.  Those upside-down leaves annoyed me for quite awhile, until I figured nobody would notice.  Except now you know - but you won't tell anyone else, right?!?!

I hot-glued beads in the center of some of the yo-yos, and some are left blank, like these in the header.  Although it's easy and fun to make them with the Clover yo-yo maker, getting them to be a nice symmetrical circle with a tight center is harder than it looks.  You can see the one on the right is crooked.  I'm kind of over yo-yos now; my new love is hexagons.  Maybe if I made yo-yos with some of my beautiful modern fabric I'll like them again.