Earl of Thompson

 

Sometimes quilt inspirations come from interesting places... or from interesting people. In this case - it was both.

 

Last fall, a friend of mine from high school contacted me via facebook to ask if I ever sold my quilts.  In the course of the conversation, he asked me if he could design the center of a quilt and have me take that, finish the design, and then make it as a gift for his wife.

It sounded like a fun challenge - so I told him to email me his design. 

Well - it came to me in hard copy - and he had designed the entire top, including selecting the colors.   "I got carried away a bit," he said... but I loved what he had come up with.  I chose some tone on tone and mottled fabrics to work with to give the open spaces a bit of texture - and then I pondered this one for a bit while finishing up some holiday projects that had come first.

Once we got into the new year - I got to work on this, including making myself a prototype (in orange, of course!)It took me a bit to work out some of the logistics - like the floating diamonds in the little side blocks (tutorial to follow) - and to get past my apprehension of having to quilt all that open space.  A template, a Frixion pen, variegated Aurifil thread and a whole lot of patience -and we got that done as well.

The name is a combination of my last name from when he knew me (Earl) and his last name (Thompson) -and the fact that it looks rather like a family crest.

In actuality -his inspiration is surveyors targets!

And I think this design is RIGHT ON TARGET!!!