Today’s pattern roundup is once again dedicated to Tula PInk! Her new collection, Curiouser & Curiouser, is available from your LQS as we speak, so i thought I would take the time to introduce you to the quilts I designed for this collection.
First we have The Cheshires. The Cheshire Cat is one of the most iconic Alice characters, and I really wanted to pay tribute to him. I love designing new cat blocks, and decided that these cats needed stripes. I colored them with Curiouser and some True Colors to make them pop. The Cheshire Cat is mischievous and clever, and known to disappear on a whim. To me the Cheshire was always a chaotic neutral character, neither light nor dark, so I did up backgrounds for both. Here’s a thought: if a group of cats is a clowder, would a group of Cheshire Cats be a grinning? Or am I just a little mad…….?
My next quilt in this menagerie is The Hatter. I’ll be honest, the 1951 Disney version of Alice scared me. I didn’t like it at all. It wasn’t until I was much older and had seen a few different versions of Alice that I started to appreciate it for what it was. My best friend LOVES Alice in all its forms, and her favorite charcter has always been The Hatter. I enjoyed the 2010 interpretation of the hatter as well, and knew that this character would be the next to inspire a quilt. I wanted a block that gave the impression of a busy, almost but not quite chaotic feel. The black and white stripe from Linework was the perfect accent to this quilt, and gave it the exact look I wanted.
When it comes to iconic characters, none are more so than Alice herself and the Queen of Hearts. The relationship between these two has be told and retold many ways in many forms. The Queen of Hearts is a playing card, and is sometimes confused with the Red Queen, whom appeared in the sequel, Through The Looking Glass, which centers around a chess board. In Wonderland, The Queen of Hearts is wild, unbridled, passionate fury, and symbolizes Alice’s fear, and her need to face her fear in order to help her grow up. In Looking Glass, the Red Queen is a figure of structure and order, a cold and calculating fury. She informs Alice of the rules of the game, and lets Alice know she can become a queen from a pawn. In the end, a chessboard and a game was the inspiration for this quilt.
The final quilt for this collection is inspired by the playing cards. I wanted a fun, lighthearted quilt that featured the suits on the playing cards, and of course provide a perfect pun opportunity. Suit Yourself is a raw-edge applique project that features the rainbow ombre in the Suited and Booted print, which was used for the sashing around the blocks.
Curiouser and Curiouser was an absolute joy to work with. The prints are so detailed, down to the braces on Alice’s teeth and the drips of paint on the roses. Its hard to pick a favorite. I love that Tula is creating border prints as well, perfect for fussy cutting as well as, of course, borders. I’ve already cut out a ton of it for an EPP project I’m starting. Can’t wait to show you all in a year or two when I finish it!
Happy Stitching!
