Criss Cross

"Criss Cross" - 60"x60" - 1995

Description: Based on an 1898 block called Fort Sumter, from "The Quilter's Album of Blocks & Borders" by Jinny Beyer.

Techniques: Machine pieced and hand-quilted.

Materials: cotton, wool, and silk fabrics. Center squares and "dots" are from recycled clothes. Most others are fabric samples. Sashing and borders are cotton chintz.

Exhibitions:
1995 Dogwood Arts Festival - Knoxville, TN
Judges Choice Award
2006 Festival of Quilts - Farragut, TN

"Criss Cross" is the third quilt I made. It's one I never intended to make. Just before this, I had pieced a twenty-five block top using this same block pattern for a 50th birthday present for my younger sister. The only excitement for me in making that quilt was embroidering the names and birth dates of her six children and many grandchildren in the center squares. Our mother, Lira Froit, hand-quilted it.

I noticed the secondary pattern that formed when the blocks were sewn together and began to wonder "what would happen if" I ran and connected colors though the design. The corner squares are the colors that would happen if the hues on each side of it were mixed together.
TVA (Tennessee Valley Authority) wanted to add this piece to their corporate collection. However, I had already given it to my husband for Christmas.