When Alison Glass contacted me asking if I would like to make something out of her new collection, Field Day, it didn’t take much to convince me. Anyone familiar with my stash through Instagram knows just how much of a fanatic I am for deep, saturated color (and how many of my quilts include pieces from Alison’s past collections).
I had been excited about Alison’s new line since seeing the photos of it at Quilt Market this past spring. Upon seeing the spectacular photos of her booth, I began plotting what my project would be when I got my hands on some of the fabric. Much to my surprise, I didn’t need to wait too long to be able to start cutting into the gorgeous materials. My friend at Andover, Daryl, sent some of the fabric my way along with some of Andover’s new chambrays. It was kismet. The two lines were astonishing together. The balance between the bold and graphic prints of Alison’s line with the near-iridescence of the chambrays made for a perfect pairing.
I had had a few ideas for what I wanted to do with Field Day before I had received it, but once I saw the line in person and put it next to the chambrays, everything changed. I drew up some sketches of potential ideas but nothing really spoke to me. I wanted to do something that would make Alison’s breathtaking prints jump out at you. The scale of the prints is so fantastic. To me, they begged to be kept in tact because they are so intricate and interwoven.
That’s when I took a few steps back and decided I wanted to do something simple. The colors and prints in Field Day speak for themselves. I realized I didn’t really need to do anything too elaborate because Alison had pretty much already done the work for me. That’s when I remembered I had always wanted to make a plus-sign quilt…
When I started to lay out the prints with the chambrays it really started to come to life. The solid pluses framing the vibrant Field Day ones gave the prints almost a three dimensional quality. The two lines melted together. I think the thing I love most about the pairing of Field Day and the chambrays is that the chambrays help to really pull out the very subtle use of color in Alison’s more complex prints.
When it came time to quilt, I knew I wanted to continue down the road of simplicity. I decided it best to stick with diagonal straight-line quilting, but I played a little bit with variations of how the lines were woven together. As a result, the quilted lines move in different patterns throughout the quilt. Up close I feel it makes your eyes dance just a bit from piece to piece.
I’m so grateful to Alison and the good people over at Andover for allowing me this opportunity. In addition to thanking Alison and Daryl for their help on this project, I would also like to thank Nicole Daksiewicz for helping me to take some beautiful photos of this quilt. Be sure to hop on over to her blog to check out the absolutely unbelievable things she has been doing with Field Day. Also be sure to check out Alison’s blog to see some of the incredible projects that people have been making with Field Day.
