Kingston Heirloom Quilters

established in 1979

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KHQ Group Quilt: The Tulip Quilt, 1995

The tulip blocks in this quilt are from one of our semi-annual block raffles. The winner of these blocks opted to turn them back to the group. Being fairly new to quilting, she was uncertain how to pull such disparate blocks together, as some were quite pale and others were very vibrant. Another fairly new, but more experienced member, Julie Michaux, volunteered to coordinate the construction of a quilt from these blocks.

She first found a print that picked up the colours in all of the tulips. Then chose a strong burgundy to work with that. From these she made the alternate blocks. Where one would commonly see plain background negative area, there was instead, a print block that had an inverted scallop burgundy border appliqued onto it. The blocks were set on point and joined with print sashing.

Members were asked to make a single tulip matching the ones in their raffle block to be used in the border. These were strung around the quilt between two lines of scallops that mirror each other along the border's edge. This frame provided perfect balance for the tulip blocks. The result is a strong, vibrant and stunning quilt.

The moral of this story is: when combining weak block with strong blocks, go very strong.

This quilt was on the frame at Festival of Quilts III. When finished, our Tulip Quilt was donated to Dawn Hose Women's Shelter for use as a fund raiser.

For a more detailed picture, click on quilt.

Send questions and comments to: khq at quiltskingston.org
Last modified by dhh: November 20, 2005