feline fanatic

I love Asian prints but have a hard time finding good patterns to showcase them. Two years ago at the Bennington Quilt show I saw a quilt that was simple circles of fussy cut Asian prints appliqued to squares. I thought what an ingenius way to showcase Asian prints. So without a pattern, only a picture of this quilt I set out making "Karyukai - Flower and Willow world". I hand appliqued fussy cut 5" circles to 6 " squares and just to make things fun and different from the quilt I saw at Bennington, I set my squares on point. The background fabrics fade from very light white on white prints in the center to darker hues of beige, tan and gold. I had a load of fun picking the different elements from Asian prints to fussy cut. Gorgeous flowers, sand hill cranes, koi fish and of course Geisha. With so many geisha I dubbed the quilt after the world of Geisha, Karyukai which translates to flower and willow world. For a geisha is beautiful like a flower but strong and flexible like a willow tree. I background quilted stylized chrysanthemum flowers behind the appliqued circles, then a stylized curly willow leaf in the inner border and a very asian inspired ginko leaf in the outer border. I wish I had a better place in my house to photograph quilts but no place is quite big enough to get the whole quilt in. As always, I look forward to reading your comments.

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