The idea for this quilt was sparked by a visit to an interesting store in Philadelphia called the Resource Exchange.  Among innumerable odd items for sale, they had a large selection of small square samplers of upholstery fabrics.  We brought home an array of blocks that all had one thing in common; they had designs reminiscent of Mid-Century Modern fabrics.  Somehow, this made them all fit together in our minds despite the wide variety of color combinations.  They were moved around and about on a design board many times until we realized that the perfect arrangement would be a 'Mid Century' one, reminiscent of the negative-space block walls of that era, which served as decorative privacy screens in outdoor (and sometimes indoor) spaces.  Thus a quilt featuring negative space was born.  The original fabric blocks were not all the exact same size, and had to be trimmed a bit to remove the thick spots of adhesive from corners where the cardboard labels had been affixed.  They were then individually quilted and machine sewn together column by column.  We were dissatisfied with the unfinished look of the 'block wall' at that point and realized that what we needed was 'mortar'.  So we cut dozens of short vertical strips of mortar from gray (what else) fleece and used fusible webbing to attach them.  Finally, we finished off the piece with long horizontal strips of the same gray fleece, which effectively finished the edges all the way around.  Five smaller upholstery square blocks were created and sewn across the top to serve as tabs for the wood hanger, which is Tulip Poplar stained gray to match the gray of the fleece mortar.

 

This piece measures 57" long by 32" wide.