Spiromaniacs

RM 7-9-7:  After our phone conference tonight, Bev & Barb are officially at work on their quilt, though the only thing they’ll tell me is that the title will be:

Bev, Barb & a Bottle of Wine 

Oh, and that they’re shooting for having it on the cover of the book . . .

Hmmmm…..  is that the sound of a guantlet being thrown?

RM: Barb & Bev — oh my goodness, I just realized that you two have the same names as my identical twin sisters Barbara and Beverly!

BP 9-6-07:  I’m attaching some pictures of our quilt which is NOT DONE YET!! It’s very close, but we wanted you to see it so far. We are very pleased with it!! EXCITED actually!!  Bev is taking the quilt for the weekend to finish up the appliqué, and we’ll be binding it and putting the hanging sleeve and label on it Monday or Tuesday!! HOORAY!!

This is the backing — we love that fabric! Bev went on a mission to find it; we had purchased a small piece to ‘try it out’ and when we decided that’s the one we wanted for the back, the store was out!! She persevered and found it, when I [Barb] would have given up!

RM:  Wow — the great unveiling!  Thanks for the photos — finally!  The quilt is not like anything I imagined, and shows off all kinds of interesting ways to color those square spiral blocks — good work! I can’t believe you’re appliqueing all those small individual grapes, especially after sewing all the little pieces in the blocks. 

So what was the final tab at the wine shop?  And how does it compare with the tab at the fabric shop?  🙂

BP 10-4-07: RaNae – I am shipping the quilt to Wisconsin today from work. I’ve attached some pictures of the finished quilt and the word document that is the label on it…use them as you see fit. Maybe in our work in progress page?

Thanks again for giving us this opportunity…it’s been a blast!

RM 10-5-07:  The text of the label on the back of the quilt:

Designed by Barb Dey Porter and Beverly Kropf Anderson with EQ5, templates from RaNae Merrill and two bottles of red wine.

Paper pieced by Barb and Bev, and numerous bottles of red AND white wine!

Shop Hopping for fabric, 6 shops; 100 mile radius, 2 red, 2 white.

Machine quilted by Barb, red wine.

Making yo-yo’s on the Muskegon River – 3 bottles of Sangria.

Appliquéd (after quilting) by Barb and Bev, red and white wine.

Beaded by Barb and Bev -MUCH WINE!! Red, White, Sangria, and Champagne!

It started as a small, strippy sampler wall hanging, grew to an 86 x 114 HUGE bed quilt and settled down as an 80 x 84 still large but manageable quilt.

We decided to make yo-yo’s (lots and lots of yo-yos – we have some left) and appliqué them on (upside down!) creating a circle of grapes – but they wanted something – hence the beads. The center of the center square is a grape fabric; that told us it ‘needed’ something….MORE BEADS!! Then the leaves looked funny….solution: embroidered veins!!

We enjoyed this project immensely and were stretched to the max with designing, fabric choices and embellishments! Thanks for the challenge!