This is the aforementioned wall quilt, which I call "Tumbling Tropics." I got the idea for this when I was in New York -- taking full advantage of the world's largest Barnes and Noble on 17th and Union Square, I bought a slew of quilting magazines and read through them for new ideas and patterns. In Quilt Almanac, I found this intensely colored, absolutely gorgeous quilt called "Sally's, Of Course", quilted by Sally Griffith. I've always wanted to do something bright and tropical, and this picture plus the fact that I had easy access to the Garment District and this marvelous shop called City Quilter did it -- I was gonna make me a tropical quilt.

Now all I had to do was come up with a pattern. Which wasn't as easy as it sounds -- classic quilt blocks didn't seem right with the colors I wanted, and I couldn't find a pattern that I liked.

Finally, I stumbled across another picture that featured a quilt with a tilted four patch block. I wasn't thrilled with the center block, but the tilt was exactly what I wanted -- slightly off-kilter, definitely funky. I decided on a double four patch block for the center, and as soon as I got home (and I mean that literally -- I landed back in Stockholm on a Friday morning, took a short nap, got up and started cutting) I began to put Tumbling Tropics together.

By Monday I had finished piecing the top and quilting the layers -- I added the binding on Tuesday, tacked down the center of each small four patch with an aqua glass bead, and ran a backstitch of metallic gold thread down each block seam for just the right touch of shine.