Azulejos • Quilt Finish

Azulejos • Quilt #227
61 1/2″ wide by 75 1/2″ long

It was a rainy, wet day in Lisbon, and we’d made our way by bus to the Lisbon National Museum of the Azulejo, or the Tile Museum.  We were rewarded for our efforts as I began to call it the Quilters’ Resource Center.  If you are a grid enthusiast, as I am, it was heaven to walk through, with all sorts of interesting ways to think about what’s in a grid, as well as how to use color and negative space to make a design.  And so, from a small sketch on that day in 2016, I created this quilt.

I was also inspired by a beautiful fabric created by Alison Glass from her Handiwork Collection.  It was just so….azul (or blue, in Portuguese).  I filled in with other treasures from my stash, and got to work trying to make it easier to construct.

Cathy Kreter, my quilter, did a nice tight design for the quilting.

So why if I finished it in November, have I not put it up here until now?  Two reasons: one is I was seeing if my favorite magazine was interested (not this time, they said), and secondly, it was slated to hang at Road to California with a collection of modern quilts made by my guild, the Inland Empire Quilt Guild.  We were honored to be able to have our quilts hung in the atrium as quilters entered, so I kept it quiet.  There are more pictures on our Guild’s blog, taken by our President’s husband, a professional photographer.

On Sunday after Road was over, I had to wait like forever to pick up the three quilts I had at Road.  My husband snapped this as we were leaving, Ladybird in my hands (well, the backing for Ladybird — a stellar print by Jane Sassaman).

Today I took some more photos of Azulejos, laying it down by the tools of the painters who were working at our home that day, scraping popcorn ceilings painting.  It’s nice how a quilt can brighten any corner!