March 2012 Diane's American Beauty

In Diane's American Beauty Quilt, she used the same fabrics that Thea used in her 2012 Block of the month quilt but with a totally different resulting look.  Once the patterns were decided on, this was probably the first custom quilt that I was totally relaxed in stitching. Most likely because I had already used the block pattern and loved the way it fit in this type of block. Once the other quilting designs were decided on I simply took a few hours each day to work on different sections of the quilt. Got into a nice rhythm.  

Diane had told me that she didn't "need" it until summer because she was planning to enter it in the Oregon State Fair in August so I could take my time.  I had set as a goal however to be able to hand deliver it to her when I attended the Long-Arm extravaganza in March.  I used the same block pattern as I had on Thea's BOM quilt but used a melon motif in the sashing and a starburst in the stars.  I was very pleased with the results especially when I hand delivered it to Diane in Portland and she paid me the nicest complement of asking me to quilt two more custom quilts for her.  Love the rush of seeing beauty added to beauty.  

Diane's American Beauty Quilt.  I used 8 different designs on this quilt.
It took me quite awhile to find bits and pieces that worked together within the
sashings, triangles, borders, corners and blocks and stars.

This photo shows the melon (31 in all)  I did in the sashing and
the black sashing pieces. The melon piece was designed to fit
in the small section of  a  double wedding ring quilt. I chose this
because the swirls on the end fit nicely into the points of the sashing. 

I first tried the starburst freehand which reminded me why
I bought the pro-stitcher.  20 Starbursts on this quilt.
Uniformity is good. You can see the arch play design in the
triangle piece. The small green sashing I did freehand with
a small loop and swirl.

Love the way the design showed up in this block.

The back of Diane's American Beauty