Midnight in the Tropics

I've started cutting out the pieces for an floral applique wallhanging. I love the pattern and saw a quilt made from it at a local quilt show last fall. It was stunning...and not just the quilt itself but also the quilting. At that point, I decided I wanted to make a similar one with just 4 blocks. The blocks are large - the pattern calls for ~21-inch backgrounds; I increased that to 24" because I wanted a bit more of the background to show along the edges. And I'm happy I did that. I do like it better than the original pattern sample. I also decided that I wanted my flowers to be bright. As in tropical bright because (in case you didn't know) I LOVE the tropics. Put me in the South Pacific and I'm in heaven. And with that in mind, I'm calling my creation "Midnight in the Tropics" because it makes me smile and recalls for me some wonderful times we've spent in the tropics. Here's the first block: I'm using a navy-blue floral for the background. If you look closely you can see the darker flowers on the background fabric - it's subtle but it's there. I've cut out all the pieces except for the small leaves that extend from the point of the flower stem. I'll do those after I finish appliquing down the flowers and stems. Selecting the fabrics really stretched me. It's not really in my nature to "boldly go where no quilter named ME has gone before" when I select fabrics. I love greens and blues for most things but this was supposed to represent the tropics, right? And other quilters use bright plaids and stripes so why couldn't I? Oh my! There are some quilters who would say it's wrong to mix batiks with their wovens and marbled cousins, but you know what? I don't care. Once I started putting the colors together, all I cared about was that I liked it. I'm the one who's going to applique it; I'm the one who has to live with it. And frankly, the fabrics remind me of the tropics where everything goes together.

Another thing I love about this pattern is that the pieces are Huge. Jumbo. Gigantic even. And for a novice appliquer like me, that's a bit deal. The pieces have soft curves and there are very few itsy, bitsy places that require the kind of teeny, tiny stitches that more experienced appliquers make.

One other thing for those who might be in shock at the size of fabric I've left outside the turning line. Yes, I will be cutting that down at bit when I do the needle-turn on it. Although, truthfully, it doesn't both me if a substantial (read: greater than a eighth-inch) amount of fabric is turned under. I'm not a perfect quilter. Or a perfect person. But I'm going to love Midnight in the Tropics in all its imperfection.