Kiwiana Illusions Quilt

I finally cut into my New Zealand fabrics! Choosing a pattern was challenging because I usually work with smaller pieces and tend to avoid fabrics with larger-scale prints. The breakthrough came when one of my customers picked up a quilt just before Christmas. Seeing her reminded me of a quilt she had brought in a few years ago. Out of the almost one thousand customer quilts I have worked on, I don’t know how that specific one came to mind—but it did! It was her Illusion quilt. I looked it up immediately and decided to give it a try. I even went out to buy some white fabric for the background and had more than enough of the black Maori scroll fabric from New Zealand to use for the drop shadows.

I spent a lot of time sewing over the holidays and finished the blocks quickly. With 34 different Kiwiana fabrics, each appears at least twice in the quilt—some even three times. I laid the blocks out on the living room floor and shuffled them around until I was happy with the layout. That is when my silly cats decided it was playtime. One of them dashed in, leapt onto the layout, and slid across the hardwood floor on the blocks. I was not amused and had to start over. Eventually, I found a layout I liked and snapped a picture right away—before my two little clowns could ruin it again.

The quilt top has been finished for a few weeks, but the quilting will have to wait. While I usually prefer custom quilting, I think this one calls for an all-over pattern. The fabrics are the star of the quilt, and I do not want the quilting to overshadow them. I have a vague idea of using a scroll design inspired by Maori patterns, but I doubt I will find exactly what I am imagining—so I will probably have to draw it myself. There is just one more issue: I do not have any backing fabric. I know exactly what I want, though—it is a Nutex Kiwiana design that my favourite New Zealand quilt shop received about a month after our visit. Who knows, maybe I need to go back there to buy it. That is a good excuse for another trip to New Zealand, right?