This quilt began as a project at Pine Street Quilts, where I work, called Fair and Square. It is a 12 month block exchange and when it was my month I chose the required four fabrics of a floral batik, and the tone on tone magenta, dark orange and light orange. I knew I would do the placement with a large square in the middle. I did not know what I was putting in the middle when I pieced it. As I was working on the piecing it, the fabrics gave me a warm tropical vibe. This lead to a Carmen Miranda fruity type woman which was appliqued using a raw edged fused technique. I was happy to have four star blocks for the corners. When one does these block exchanges you gamble on what you will receive from others interpreting your fabric choices.
This is the detail image of the woman's face. Originally I did not have the fabric behing the eyes and lips but I it needed enhancement so I chose a few solids for the task.
Carmen Miranda worn a lot of chunky necklaces and I chose to create it with embellishments. The 3 pink rings are reused bikini swimsuit rings I couldn't throw away, and the beads are from a Hello Kitty necklace from the $1 bin at Target that I took apart to get the majenta beads and some generic Walmart beads in hot pink. The rest of the necklace was created with multi-color ribbon ruched and tacked onto the quilt. I loved the coordinating colors and thought it went well with the quilt colors.
I remembered I have a Carmen Miranda cookie jar on my refrigerator and that made me smile!
I have combined traditional and art quilts techniques in this quilt
