Goodnight, Moon

The book I chose was "Goodnight, Moon" by Margaret Wise Brown.
First line: "In the great green room there was a telephone..."
By Laura West Kong, size: 8 5/8" x 8 3/4", pieced and appliqued.

My mind was mush after the holiday rush so I chose something simple and fun. My inspiration was the stylish old telephone on the nightstand in the book, and the quilt project "Oak Leaves" in American Quilter, Winter 2006.

I changed the block from rectangle to square and replaced the leaf with the phone. Then I mixed up the squares to be random rather than in diagonal rows. I chose warm greens for the front because I thought they would contrast better with the black than cool greens. I wanted the fabric mostly to have good contrast, but with a little low contrast thrown in (the two darker value greens). In the book everything is all shadowy and moonlit. The lighter green star print is actually very similar to Clement Hurd's illustrations.

Everything is from my stash. I originally wanted to tilt the squares at an angle to add interest, but that was way too much math for my tired brain, so I offset the phone instead.

I tried out a variety of borders, but they all competed with the focal point so I opted for a fused black binding instead. I was also considering ways to include that fun curly telephone cord, but in the end chose to leave it off for simplicity's sake.

The quilting is done with my machine scallop stitch echoed around the phone. It is meant to be reminiscent of those curly telephone cords, as well as suggestive of a ringing phone. For the hanger I sewed a large jump ring to the back.