Papa's Woods

My family used to own about 50 acres of wooded property in Western Pennsylvania. That land has since been donated to a land trust for preservation, since not many of us still live in the area. But while growing up, picnics and hikes out in "the woods" were a weekly event every summer.

The plants in this quilt all grew on our property. One entire hillside was covered with white trillium. The jack-in-the-pulpits grew throughout the forest, but the red trillium only grew in one specific valley next to a waterfall.

This quilt was a commission for my mom and her two sisters. I made three total, one for each of them.

Prints of the trillium and jack are available individually.

Transformation

Papa's Woods was my very first official quilt. It's the culmination of a year and a half of experimentation and learning: It was designed entirely on the computer, its fabrics were cut by machine, and it's held together with fusible and thread. It has a top, batting, and a backing, it has finished edges, I stitched it by free-motion quilting, and the one hanging in my mom's house looks just as good as the day I made it. For a first stab at quilting, this is as good as it gets.

I also digitized my signature and embroidered it into the quilt. This is now my standard method of "signing" my quilts.