Alice's Quilt: Paint the Town Red!

In thinking about the theme for this quilt, I started wondering about common expressions using the word “paint.”  The first one that jumped into my brain was “paint the town red,” and so I decided to make a quilt that depicted a village of all-red houses.  Immediately I was reminded of the group quilt that Carolyn, Judy, Rita, and I constructed a few years ago that we called “Whimseyville."  Remembering that quilt and the fun we had in working together on it made it extra enjoyable to work on this quilt!

Just as we did with Whimseyville, I made the background first, starting at the top with an assortment of blue fabrics for the sky.  Working down, I added brown and green fabrics for the ground.  I used scraps of already fused fabrics from a bin containing leftovers of other fusing projects.  I fused these background sections onto a square of plain fabric.  I also found the perfect scrap for the sun.

Then I did fusing Wonder Under, onto scraps of red fabrics, and I free-hand cut house shapes and roofs.  I then used a tiny zig-zag stitch to appliqué all of these down onto the background.  I "thread sketched" the rays of the sun. This appliquéing of the houses, sun, and sections of the sky and ground sufficed for the quilting.