Fresh Salsa by Ann Fahl

Price: $3,500.00  Size: 50 x 50 inches
Additional Images: 1  2  3  4 

This quilt was started years back when there was a special exhibit at the Houston Show. The quilts had to be 51 x 51 inches and winners were displayed in a special gallery atmosphere.

My entire family loves Mexican food, and I especially like fresh salsa. So the colors of the ingredients, tomatoes, peppers, onions and cilantro were the inspiration for the bright colors selected for all the triangles.

To give the quilt a hint of the tomato, I stitched on thousands of iridescent red bugle beads to look like a tomato sliced in half. Remember, I had to make it stand out, so it would be accepted into the exhibit. Now years later, I have decided that the beads just didn’t enhance the work, so I removed them all; letting the colors and shapes create the festive visual impact.

The machine quilting is accomplished with matching thread colors, all variegated red, yellow or dark green. It is as improvisational in style as I could accomplish within the color blocks. There is Wool batting inside, and it is bound with a green, blue and red stripe.

You can read more about the making of this quilt by going to my blog, and viewing the November/December 2012 blogs.