Six years in Provence

I started this quilt, '6 years in Provence' as a gift for DiscoJen back in 2004. It's a Yellow Brick Road' by Terry Atkinson quilt that I've made a gazillion of over the years.  The fabric is 'Marseille' by Deb Strain for Moda.

I had the top done forever, but wanted to miter the borders, but didn't know how back then. My friend Alice showed me how one year at a retreat, and I did the two inner borders, but not the outer border. I have no clue why. You are supposed to sew all of the boarders to be mitered together first, then attach them to quilt and miter away.

I'm glad I didn't put the last border on back then though, because now I'm much better at it and boy am I proud of how I matched those border lines!

I was motivated to get it done because Paige is teaching me how to quilt pantograph patterns on her long arm machine and I needed something to practice on. Not to mention that I didn't relish the thought of pinning the quilt. A pantograph is an all over pattern that you quilt on the entire quilt, borders and all. You have to use a laser pointer to follow the pattern. It's much harder then it looks. Paige happened to have the perfect pattern for the quilt too, it's called "Fleur de Lis Flourish".

DiscoJen actually bought her couch based on this quilt something like 3 or 4 years ago. The back fabric is hard to see in this photo, but it's really beautiful. Of course I didn't have enough of it, so I had to make do with other fabric that I had on hand.

Why did I call it '6 Years in Provence'? I made a play on the title of the Peter Mayle book 'A Year in Provence' that both DiscoJen and I really enjoyed. She immediately realized the reference when she read the label and thought it was hysterical. I gave it to her at L'Eiffel Bistrot and Creperie in South Barrington where we went to celebrate her birthday lunch. It was an all French kind of day! We were really at the L'Eiffel for the Deja Vu dessert crepe that has nothing but butter and sugar on it. Pure heaven on a plate! We split an absolutely fabulous cream of mushroom soup and tenderloin on arugula salad before the crepes. It was our way of justifying our own crepe each for dessert. We ended up order a third one when DiscoJen's son realized he really liked them too.  It was a lovely day.