Here is another of my finalists in the National Quilt Museum's annual challenge, "New Quilts From an Old Favorite". This year featured original designs using the Bow-Tie Block. Bow Doodles won third Place from hundreds of world-wide entries, was featured in the exhibit and traveled with the 17 other finalists for two years to museum and quilt show venues.
I used the traditional bow tie block and a variation for the 3-sided border, making a contrast to the wild, free-form gyrations of the bows in the center of the quilt. The colors were inspired by the floral bouquet fabric pattern you see in the fourth border by Jason Yenter. The bows were machine-pieced, then appliqued onto the background, using a life-size drawing as a placement control. You can see the paper in the "progression" pictures I have included, so you can see how it was made. Each free-form bow scarf has a bowtie holding it together to echo the border. I free-motion quilted it on an industrial sized domestic machine. The fabrics are cotton batiks and commercial printed cotton and
Bow Doodles" is ready to hang on a large wall. It measures 78" by 78".