Red and White

One of my great regrets is that I wasn't able to see the Folk Art Museum's Red and White Quilt Show, "Infinite Variety".  It's silly, I suppose, to regret something that you don't have any control over, but if it means a little extra drama, I'll find a way.

Just looking at this picture (by Gavin Ashworth, thank you Folk Art Museum), the title they decided on is richly deserved.  They're so striking, so modern, so traditional and so engrossing.

So I was very excited when my quilting bee package for September arrived.  This month's Queen was inspired by both the show and a quilt from the show that incorporated a little bit of cheddar fabric (and some unbelievably stunning quilting).  So she asked for a modern red and white sampler.

I immediately knew that I wanted to do one large "patch" with just one cheddar square.  I was thinking of Michael Bennett talking about an effect that he wanted to achieve during a dance, where you would see all of these aging chorus line dancers (okay, theatre geeks, twenty points if you can identify the musical,*) in a row, and then one would be missing, and you'd realize that she had died.  Only he didn't have enough dancers, so it wound up just looking silly.

So I knew that I wanted to do more than a nine-patch, and since it was a 12-inch block, I thought it might be just right.  I'm really happy with how it turned out (and strip piecing it made it a breeze!):

For the second block, I was thinking of a block I'd seen by Weeks Ringle and Bill Kerr from Modern Blocks, compiled by Susanne Woods.  Theirs used a different fabric idea, but I thought it might work for this as well:

Based on "Passing Through" by Weeks Ringle and Bill Kerr

Another one that I really can't wait to see put together!  The ones I've seen on the NY chapter of the MQG are just wonderful.

*A: It's Follies, "Who's That Woman"