O beautiful for spacious skies,
“America the Beautiful” By Katherine Lee Bates
For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties
Above the fruited plain!
America! America!
God shed His grace on thee
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea!
This beautiful poem by Katherine Lee Bates is my inspiration for this quilt, Purple Mountain Majesty. Bates was inspired by her visit to Pikes Peak in Colorado.
Welcome to my turn on the Beat the Heat Blog hop. Early this year, Island Batik sent each ambassador samples from one of their spring or summer 2019 lines. This month, all of us who got the spring collection are showing off our projects. I view this as a capstone project of sorts and wanted to make something very special and unique.
I’ve come to love this line of fabric with its muted tones and elegant, low-volume prints. But this is way out of my comfort zone. I usually work with bright, saturated colors with high contrast. By April, I had started panicking since I still didn’t have an idea for this collection. Then one day, on my drive home, I heard this short segment on NPR called American Anthem on ” songs that rouse, unite, celebrate and call to action“. Everything fell together with this beautiful song – the muted purples, yellows and greens, sunrise and early morning mist, cool mountain air, hope for better times for America, our family trips to National Parks over the years, quiet and cool mountain hikes, escaping the Houston heat, Beat the Heat blog-hop…. Please listen to the NPR clip if you can. Also listen to this beautiful rendition by Ray Charles. Or my favorite – the Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin. I am sure everyone – American or not – can appreciate this beautiful song.
Back to quilting. Most of my design work was on grid paper. I decided to use half-rectangle triangles (HRT) for the purple mountains, quarter-square triangles(QST) for the sunrise and the sky, and half-square triangles (HST) for the vegetation. I cut some pieces from several fabrics in the collection and “built” the quilt on the design wall.
I used AccuQuilt GO for most of the cutting. Given the number of HSTs and QSTs in the quilt, it was a real time saver. I could cut six blocks at once and absolutely no trimming HSTs and QSTs!
Hobbs Batting had sent a silk blend batting in with my Island Batik box. I had not used silk before and I wanted to try. Silk blend batting is very lightweight and even after I quilted this heavily, it drapes nicely and lies flat.
I used swirls, pebbles and McTavishing-like lines for the early morning sky, slanted lines for the mountains, and vertical wavy lines for the greens. I used two Isacord threads from my collection – eggshell for the light sky and light green for the forests. I used two Aurifil threads – the purple for the mountains and the orange for the brighter parts of the sky. With the design reaching all the way to the edge, I did not want to mess with a pieced binding. I sewed on a facing for this quilt and I love the way it looks. I’m going to consider sewing a facing instead of binding for modern quilts in the future.
Disclosure: The fabrics for this project was provided by Island Batik, the batting by Hobbs batting, some thread by Aurifil threads and the AccuQuilt Go! by AccuQuilt, all as part of the Island Batik ambassador project. I want to thank IB and all its partners for the opportunity to play and work with their products.
I have a giveaway for you. I have some leftover fabric from my project. This bundle includes two fat quarters (18″ X 22″) and about 5″-6″ X 20″ cuts of all the other fabrics in the collection. I will be happy to mail this for one lucky winner anywhere in the world. To enter, leave a comment and tell me what’s your favorite mountain town (my favorite is Banff in the Canadian Rockies!). Follow me on Instagram or Bloglovin or “Like” my page on Facebook or by email and leave comment telling me how you follow me for an additional entry. I will pick a winner on Sept 1st and announce on Sept 2nd. Please make sure you are not a no-reply blogger or leave me an email when you comment. Your email is only visible to me and NOT visible publicly. Linking to Giveaway party hosted by Slice of Pi Quilts.
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Visit the other ambassador blogs this week to see how they Beat the Heat!
Monday, August 19 – Petal Pushers
Joanne Hart
Carla Henton
Tuesday, August 20 – Quiet Shades
Connie Kauffman
Vasudha Govindan
Wednesday, August 21 – Seedlings
Vicki Schlimmer
Mania Hatziioannidi
Thursday, August 22 – Soil & Seeds
Gail Sheppard
Monday, August 26 – Steam Engine
Maryellen McAuliffe
Jennifer Strauser
Tuesday, August 27 – Sunny Side Up
Connie K Campbell
Joan Kawano
I follow on Instagram. I’m not from a mountainous area and don’t travel much, but I have been to a couple of mountain towns in Northern California while visiting my daughter. I can’t remember the name of one, but the other One was Paradise which unfortunately burned last year. 😢
BTW…I ❤️ your quilt.
What a glorious use of your allocated fabrics. You have captured the uplifting tones of the poetry so well, I love it.
I follow on bloglovin–just a glorious quilt–love those colors…hugs, Julierose
Hello Vasudha,
Such a beautiful quilt! The range of colours is perfect for a dramatically lit mountain scene, and the detail of the quilting and the fabric designs is fascinating to see close up.
Thank you for linking up with Free Motion Mavericks! Your quilt is this week’s featured project.
Love, Muv
Wow, there are so many things to say about this beauty! I love the combination of HRTs, HSTs, and QSTs. Using your AccuQuilt Go was a smart way to go!
Beautiful. I love seeing all the quilting detail. And the picture out in nature is lovely. Thank you for linking up to Show Me Something Purple.
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