Blogger's Quilt Festival: Joie de Vivre

Joie de Vivre, Tina Rathbone, c.2000

For my entry into this fall's Blogger's Quilt Festival, I submit Joie de Vivre, another quilt of many "firsts." Completed in 2000, it marks the first time I participated in a quilt block swap, my first log cabin, my first king-sized quilt, my first professionally quilted quilt, and my first quilt to be displayed in a small quilt show.

The Brownie Troop, my Wednesday quilt group, comes up with group projects from time to time. One of our members, I forget who, suggested this block: a log cabin with a starter square in grey and then alternating black and white strips in any width, with a colored strip stuck in somewhere. We each made 12 of the same block, and I was off! Of course I needed many, many more blocks to get up to king-sized, so I solicited blocks from other quiltmakers, from my guild and beyond. They riffed on the idea by adding more than one colored strip per block, and soon each block became a story in itself. So many of my friends contributed blocks, with such an astounding variety of black and white prints: I could gaze at it for hours, and often do.

We ended up showing our Black and White quilts in a little show at our guild. Here are some others, and Brownies, please email me and tell me which one is yours so I can add captions and give you credit for your marvelous creations.

Aren't I lucky that the Brownies let me hang out with them? :)

The Brownie Troop Does Black and White, 2000