Bangkok Nights--An Oldie

View of the fabrics

I'm working on documenting my older finished quilts. This is the story of one of those quilts!

My oldest daughter helped me pick the fabrics for this quilt in June of 1998. It was one of the first projects that I picked my own fabrics for the project. (Usually, I went to the local quilt shop and picked a couple fabrics and had the staff help me choose the rest!) My oldest daughter was a great sounding board for the fabrics!

The project was a class at the local quilt store. I had hoped that the project would be for my oldest daughter. She however, did not like the orange and purple fabrics.

I thought that the purple was the perfect background for the night stars. My daughter did not like the gold stars. She really didn't like the orange fabric which was my favorite fabric in the grouping! I had chosen the colors/fabrics to coordinate with the batik that I used in the long star legs.

Looking back, I didn't get the value quite right. The tan background was too similar to the star points for the pattern to be easily seen. I do remember walking around and around the fabric store for several hours trying to choose just the right fabrics!

A full block

The pattern was a Cheryl Phillips pattern called WedgeWorks. I used templates to cut the pattern
pieces. As an aside, I've since made another Cheryl Phillips pattern; but, didn't realize it until I was writing this post!

In the four hour class, I remember stitching a small portion of one block. Over several years, I would work on the project. I had a hard time keeping the blocks circular. A friend, that I sewed with, convinced me that I would be able to quilt out the lumps. (You probably know where this post is going.) I decided that I was too much of a perfectionist and I decided that I needed to loosen up. I tried to be unconcerned about the "lumps" and the "bumps!"

What intrigued me about the pattern was that the star legs are three dimensional. I liked how the block looked. I kept sewing bits together until I had sewn all the blocks. The last step was to applique the star on top to cover the hole in the center of the block.

Borders of the quilt

I fussed a bit with the orange flange that I placed around the block and then I set the circle into a square frame. That took a lot of doing because my circles weren't exactly the right size! Eventually, I managed the sewing and I stitched the blocks together.

The pattern had unique to me borders so I stitched them in place. I was excited to pin baste the quilt and begin to quilt it on my domestic sewing machine. I had about two thirds of the background quilted with a fairly small stipple when I decided I really couldn't quilt out the lumps and bumps. I also decided that I disliked the stipple. I put it aside for a while. Later, I decided that I would rip out the stippling and start over.

Label of quilt

It took me several years to rip out the stippling. I didn't work on the quilt often. It was difficult to rip the purple thread and tiny stitches out of that purple background! Eventually, I succeeded.

I opened some seams and eased the fullness out of the top. I hand those stitched the seams closed. I echo quilted a circular pattern around the rings. I liked that quilting much better!

The backing is more of the background fabric. I had a lot of that fabric as it is also the binding! It took me more than six years to finally finish the quilt.

I named it Bangkok nights because it reminded me of the colors in some Thai costumes. In the early days, I used the alphabet in my machine to embroider the label. It took a long time to make the label!

Most of the quilt

In the end, I was happy that I had made the effort to change the quilting. I stored it thinking that perhaps it might make a good gift for a niece. I later learned that the niece wasn't interested in a homemade blanket. I kept it. When the youngest daughter was in college, she said she would use it, so I gave it to her. When she her job took her to London, England the first time, the quilt returned to our home.

She was saying how cold she was so when we visited in December. I took it to her. It goes well with Zellie, her zebra from Africa that hangs out on the floor and it goes well with Ellie, her elephant wall hanging from India.

Perhaps, all along, this quilt was made for Nicole. It just took us both some years to finally see the picture. I believe quilts end up where they are supposed to be!

After we had arrived and unpacked, Nicole tried out her latest acquisition. She seemed to be able to easily nap. . which is a great test for a quilt! I'm glad she has it and I'm glad that she is using it!

Evidence of testing the napping qualities of the quilt