![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.eleanorlevie.com\/quilting-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/blue-moon2.jpg\" "\\"blue")
<\/a>And I’d like to say that was enough to inspire me to make the quilt shown on the right. Alas, sheer desire just ain’t enough for this busy broad.\u00a0 I had two impetuses (impeti??)—Take Two: I had two compelling reasons<\/em> to make “Blue Moon” (which BTW means the second full moon in a month). \u00a0 One: The Blue Moon auction to benefit one of my favorite causes: my local Planned Parenthood. And two, a place to complete work done in a workshop<\/a>— a once-in-a-blue-moon opportunity to learn from the amazing Roberta Horton.\u00a0 Roberta calls the class Japanese Patchwork, and it involves Yukata cloth, but for my mooney, er, money, it’s visionary—and fun— in terms of working with any large-scale print.<\/p>\nTo extend and complement the patchwork, I made a great big circular applique. Starting with a mottled gray fabric, I sponged and stamped white and slate fabric paint to suggest craters and valleys. I cut out a perfect circle from thermal template plastic, and cut the painted fabric 1\/4″ larger all around, then pressed the edges under with my iron. Almost as rare as a blue moon: me doing needle-turn applique!<\/p>\n My patchwork sections asymmetrically bookending the moon, I was ready for my favorite phase, other than lunar:\u00a0 free motion quilting. Around the moon: song titles and lyrics referring to the moon. Elsewhere, phrases of a word-play\u00a0 lunatic:<\/p>\n It was worth the frustrating struggles that glitzy thread often poses!<\/p>\n Another frustration was that auction: The auctioneer didn’t know enough to describe it in lustrous terms and started the bidding at an embarrassingly low figure. Attendees were left in the dark as to the amount of work, detail, and\u00a0 customized connection to the cause.\u00a0 My husband was willing to up the bidding and even win the piece, but that seemed looney or smacking of bad-sportsmanship. The following year, this quilt did only slightly better:<\/p>\n Ah well. Winsome, lose some. In quilting, I am an amateur—a lover of quilting who doesn’t sell her work. Charity auctions—especially annual ones—have me working in a series, trying out new ideas, and open up a way of assessing the value of my art. I say, if you don’t have what it takes (read, millions) to be a philanthropist, at least you can contribute a quilt!<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n