Still Life with Eggplant, Burgundy and Emerald

I think it was because I was standing in the middle of the Convention Center in Houston, not far from an exhibit of beautiful Baltimore Album quilts, when Deborah told me of our new color palette (she'd been surfing, I hadn't), that I immediately glommed on to the idea of making my own version of a Baltimore Album block. My posts here and here show a bit of my thought process and fabric auditions.

Nikki's photo, and the names of the colors themselves had me thinking of food and bounty. So I decided that I would work with the literal meanings of eggplant, burgundy, and emerald, even if I didn't stick strictly to the colors themselves. In keeping with my self-imposed rule to keep a close tie to traditional quilts, Baltimore Album, which is typically full of flower baskets and cornucopia (bounty) made sense.

My interpretation was inspired by contemporary applique defined by use of rich or bright colors and lots of pattern. I also looked to painting and collage which often represents bounty in still lifes. While my version is probably more traditional quilt than cubist still life, I like the way it turned out, and am so pleased that, though it was iffy at times, I managed to keep the light Kaffe Fasset fabric with all the circles. I loved it's eggplanty background from the get-go and saw the light circles as representative of eggplant slices.