Brenda with a first go at 87

I love Amish quilts, and there's part of me that doesn't want to liberate any of them -- I think they already are. I love the strong geometrics, the dark, strong colours, the symmetry, and the beautiful handquilting designs. So what did I do? I picked the only quilt in the bunch that isn't technically Amish: Joseph's Coat No. 87 which is identified as a Mennonite quilt from 1900. I like the muted colours and the strong wide bars in this. And it's no secret I'm Mennonite, although probably from a different tradition than the maker of this quilt. I don't want to go into a theological discussion here, so suffice it to say Mennonites and Amish are first cousins of faith, and there would be family connections between them and so quiltmakers would have interacted.

So I've had a first go at it by sewing together strips from my scrap bin of solids. This measures about 18 inches square so far. I like the colours here, but it's not quite the mood I was going for.

So I put it on point against a solid background and put a border on it. I've always like the diamond in a square quilts, and this could be fun too. I wouldn't use the pink, but it was the biggest solid I had near at hand to put up on the design wall.
I'm still thinking about it, but I have an idea of using my words as stripes in low contrast fabric (that is an idea that liberates the liberated letters) and running them between the other stripes. I've been wanting to play with my solids for a long time, and I think I woiuld have fun with that idea.