Versailles – Quest Quilts

A few years ago I went to a Sewing and Quilting Expo, and I bought some fabric there that featured French women. It was such pretty fabric, and I just HAD to have it. Well, I bought and then didn’t know what to do with it. So it just sat in my fabric stash for a good, long while.

In my recent drive to take care of some of my long-resident fabric, I brought this piece back out. Well, it didn’t lend itself to the usual quilt fabric cutting, so I used rulers and cut out individual ladies. To do this, I ended up sacrificing every other row of the print. It felt positively sinful, but it was either that or put it back in the box for an indeterminate amount of time longer.

I’d wanted to try a technique for a while where you created a block that featured an off-centered focus in the middle. Since the ladies were of varying sizes, I figured now would be as good of a time as any to try it out.

I did have to break my rule a little and purchase some blue, but otherwise I had all of the other fabrics already on hand – even the backing! Yes, I was thrilled when I noticed some fabric I’d purchased at an estate sale in the neighborhood matched the colors on the front and also possessed a slightly French feel. Boom! Backing! All I had to do was make it slightly bigger by adding on some more of the gold fabric.

I added borders to help tone down some of the business from the blocks, and I’m happy with it, especially the pink fabric on the outermost border.

Since gold was featured so widely, I decided to stick with that and use gold-colored thread for the quilting part. The quilting itself being simple waves all the way down.