Do you have a favorite?

Park City Girl is hosting a virtual Quilt Festival, asking folks to post a photo and the story behind their favorite quilts.   My Kowabunga quilt has to be in the top 5 of my favorites - you can see I even turned it into my blog banner!

In 2006, I gathered some terrific orange fabrics which were so completely out of my comfort zone.  I started searching for the perfect pattern to use with them, and decided on a pattern called Zuzu's Petals, designed by Carrie Nelson of Miss Rosie's Quilt Co.  Putting the scrappy orange and white blocks together was so much fun, and the colors just made me smile the entire time I worked on it.  There are some really sparkly orange fabrics in it too, and I really love the added pizazz (like an orange quilt needs extra pizazz!!).

I found a wild surfboard fabric for the border.  In retrospect, I think it detracts a little from the orange and I wish I had stayed with something more subdued, but I tend to overthink these things.

When I finished the quilt in early 2007, I emailed a picture of it to Carrie Nelson.  Later that summer, I was lucky enough to take 2 classes from Carrie at the Buggy Barn in Reardan, WA.   One of the participants asked her how she felt about different interpretations of her pattern designs, and she began to tell a story about a wonderful quilt she had seen made from her Zuzu's Petals pattern in wild oranges and pinks.   It took me a few minutes to realize it was my quilt she was talking about, and I've never been so flattered.