The Maple Check quilt is made of early springtime joy. Naturally-dyed linen in a shade of rich amber tiled alongside natural grey-brown calls to mind our weekend visiting the sugar shack in late March when the syrup was flowing like liquid gold and the palest nutmeg-colored steam billowed from the metal chimney pipe over the sugarhouse. A week later, the temperatures just warm enough to have the window down on the slowest part of the road, Osa held a sparkly pinwheel out his window and watched it swirl and twirl in the cold but hopeful breeze. There was no doubt anymore that spring was coming, and this quilt’s sweet and playful colors were coaxed from that cold sunshine and hope-filled place.

Alternating checkerboard and classic pinwheel blocks create a field of delightful color and texture, with pops of other natural colors thrown in from past quilts’ shades. Backed with linen and cotton in the same palette, the quilt is bound with a cotton/linen blend fabric dyed in three different shades of indigo blue.

The Maple Check quilt is machine-pieced, hand-quilted throughout, and finished with a hand-sewn binding.

Materials: linen and cotton fabrics, organic cotton batting, cotton thread, cutch, onion skins, madder root, indigo.

 Measurements: approximately 60” square

Date: 2023