Fruit Basket Upset

Have you looked at the post on Japanese Lightening, my first quilt? I was going to make that quilt with some of these fruit and vegetable fabrics, then decided it wouldn't work. I'm not sure why I decided that, but I did, and I do like the Japanese fabrics I chose instead. But I had purchased these fabrics and every time I went to Eddie's Quilting Bee, I bought another. I'm a dietitian and guess I'm just naturally drawn to the beautiful colors of nature's bounty.

Sharon Pederson, author of Reversible Quilts, came to Eddie's and I took a class from her. She's a wonderful teacher! I never finished the table runner (for a variety of reasons, but maybe I will one day), but I loved the method. I have her book More Reversible Quilts and she has a fast and easy charity quilt pattern in it. That's the pattern I used for this. I wanted to try the pattern for Project Linus, but it suddenly dawned on me that the five stripes were perfect for a rainbow of colorful foods! Of course, I didn't have enough of all the fabrics I needed. I was able to order more through internet stores (there was none available locally any longer). I couldn't find more of the plum fabric online anywhere, but posted a request on the RJR Fabric website. I could hardly believe my good fortune when a fellow quilter replied with a source for that fabric!



This is the back of the quilt. It's reversible, but I think of the other side as the front.

I played around with a variety of names for this quilt. Family members helped (well, sometimes they helped and sometimes they got silly -- Val came up with Agribusiness as a title!), but the old childhood game of Fruit Basket Upset won out.

The quilt is not finished. It would lack only a binding, but I have decided to add a border of cherries on the front and watermelons on the back. I'll post more when I get it done!