Just Outside Your Door

When we moved into this house about a year ago, I decided I wanted to hang a quilt outside my front door--kind of a changing exhibit. Initially, this was easy because I had a pumpkin quilt that I had finished years ago and hung inside my old house at halloween. It looked lovely and the mail lady loved it. Of course, I packed it away after halloween and now can't find it to post a photo. C'est la vie. Same with my "Wear Warm Clothes" quilt that hung at Christmas. But, maybe I'll find them in time for the seasons.

For fall, I did a rustic daisy quilt. The pattern for this had a very boring picture on it; almost every fabric was a tone on tone, flat looking thing that left the quilt kinda lifeless. But, I saw the possibilities, plus I loved the idea of the odd pieced border. I used busier but still muddy prints throughout. This is blanket stitch applique by machine, with stipple quilting in a variegated thread in the background and swirling quilting in the border. I like it so much, that I've moved it inside to hang permanently--and now need to make a new fall quilt. It really isn't crooked; I just had to work around the dog while taking the photo.




After the holidays, I wanted something to suggest new life. I have had this pattern forever, but never got around to doing anything with it. So, I thought, why not? I changed the borders, but the center is as designed. Again, in the pattern photo, the fabrics were very solid--but I do not lead a solid life. I have to confess that this is simply ironed on, since I began to question why I would spent several hours appliqueing quilts that were to hang outside my door. The border is scraps from inside the quilt cut into different size strips, sewn together, and cut as one fabric. This looks kinda lumpy because it was folded away in a closet. Before hanging, I'd iron it, but I was too lazy to do that for this photo. The one thing that bothers me about this quilt is that the crow looks like a dove. So, I get around that by thinking of it as a mourning dove. The flowers also look a bit too perky.



For my summer quilt, I used another old pattern and some fabrics that were bundled together (maybe Kaffe Fassett? these look like Westminsters of some sort) along with a background dragonfly fabric that I've had forever. I'm using a lot of that in a quilt I'm working on now. For this little door quilt, I wanted something that looked like a surrealist ice cream dream summer--and I liked that some of the fabrics had a weird scale for a quilt this size. One of my problems with these door quilts is that I want them finished and up! I'm very into completing things. So, I never stop to think if the hanger on the back conflicts with the spacing of the hooks, which it does in this case--making it bunch up a bit. I'll work on that.