Mindy Carlson

Fabric shops are like fairy land – beautiful and dangerous. They have acres of fabrics arranged by colors around the shelves making the room look like a rainbow exploded inside. As you wander around the aisles you can see lovely little rolls and triangles of coordinated fabrics bundles tied with pretty ribbon. The fabric stores have arrange them like fruit ripe for the picking on the tops of the fabric shelves.

I always look at these little bundles and when I see one that looks particularly nice I think, “I could make a really beautiful quilt with that one.” And more often than not I buy it.

I bought once such roll – a roll filled with deep ocean blues, seaweed and new grass greens, and a sunny yellow – about *3 Years Ago* thinking, “I’ll sit right down and make a really nice log cabin quilt out of that.”

When I got it home and spread out the fabric across my work table I realized that this fabric was not meant for a log cabin quilt. It was meant for something a little more fun, but I wasn’t sure what. So, I put it away on my fabric shelf and looked at it from time to time to see if inspiration would hit. I cruised the quilting pattern websites to see if a pattern would speak to me. But nothing.

Until I was in yet another cute fabric store in Stillwater, Minnesota and I found a fabric by Crazy 8. It had a lot of different sized pieces and I could freehand quilt a neat design into it. Finally, after 3 years of living with this fabric and its unrealized potential I had a direction.

And here it is.

It was fun and quick to put together. The quilting took a little bit longer, but I just love it. It’s a very cheerful and quirky quilt. I will be selling it with some mixed feelings, but I think that someone is going to very happy with this lap quilt.