Thread can be used in quilting for different effects. In this detail image thread used on the red and yellow fabrics matches the fabric to blend rather than stand out. However, I sewed a line of dark thread between the yellow and red fabrics to create a more distinct separation of color. Red thead is used on the purple fabric to call attention to the angular design. Brown thread is used (pre-quilting) to make thorns on the crown of thorns.
This quilt is a re-work of the center image in Arms of Love. 
Fandango (see below) will be displayed in the Joy Category. The inspiration for this design was a painted Italian terracotta plaque circa 4th century BC.
Speaking of water, on a recent trip to North Carolina, I snapped this photo of a water lily. They're considered a perennial freshwater herb. The leaves and flowers of the water lily float on the surface of water, but the rhizomes are rooted in soil below the water's surface. All water lilies have a singular bloom. And yes, they have a bit of yellow at the center.
It was assembled in two layers. The background was pieced together first. That odd "three legged" shape is the second layer and was fused over the intersections of the pieced background, hiding the seams. The fused edges are finished with satin stitching. Four of the shapes combine to create the edges of circular unit.
Connemara Farms, Flat Rock, NC. Home of Carl Sandburg and his wife from 1945 until Mr. Sandburg’s death in 1967. Mrs. Sandburg owned and operated the Chikaming Goat Dairy. This little guy is a direct descendant of her champion goats.
Sculpture in the Sandhills Botanical Gardens, Pinehurst, NC
The detail below illustrates the way fabric choices can emphasize or de-emphasize the shapes in a block.
This quilt could be made with fewer blocks for an entirely different quilt:
Hate them in my yard but how about in a quilt? 
I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:
For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.
a man who goes about talking as if He was God. He claims to forgive sins. He says He has always existed . . . This makes sense only if He really was the God whose laws are broken and whose love is wounded in every sin . . . A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic--on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg--or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse.
There was a proud Teapot, proud of being made of porcelain, proud of its long spout and its broad handle. It had something in front of it and behind it; the spout was in front, and the handle behind, and that was what it talked about. But it didn't mention its lid, for it was cracked and it was riveted and full of defects, and we don't talk about our defects - other people do that. The cups, the cream pitcher, the sugar bowl - in fact, the whole tea service - thought much more about the defects in the lid and talked more about it than about the sound handle and the distinguished spout. The Teapot knew this.
"I know them," it told itself. "And I also know my imperfections, and I realize that in that very knowledge is my humility and my modesty. We all have many defects, but then we also have virtues. The cups have a handle, the sugar bowl has a lid, but of course I have both, and one thing more, one thing they can never have; I have a spout, and that makes me the queen of the tea table. The sugar bowl and the cream pitcher are permitted to be serving maids of delicacies, but I am the one who gives forth, the adviser. I spread blessings abroad among thirsty mankind. Inside of me the Chinese leaves give flavor to boiling, tasteless water."
This was the way the Teapot talked in its fresh young life. It stood on the table that was prepared for tea and it was lifted up by the most delicate hand. But that most delicate hand was very awkward. The Teapot was dropped; the spout broke off, and the handle broke off; the lid is not worth talking about; enough has been said about that. The Teapot lay in a faint on the floor, while the boiling water ran out of it. It was a great shock it got, but the worst thing of all was that the others laughed at it - and not at the awkward hand.
"I'll never be able to forget that!" said the Teapot, when later on it talked to itself about its past life. "They called me an invalid, and stood me in a corner, and the next day gave me to a woman who was begging for food. I fell into poverty, and was speechless both outside and inside, but as I stood there my better life began. One is one thing and then becomes quite another. They put earth in me, and for a Teapot that's the same as being buried, but in that earth they planted a flower bulb. Who put it there and gave it to me, I don't know; but it was planted there, a substitution for the Chinese leaves and the boiling water, the broken handle and spout. And the bulb lay in the earth, inside of me, and it became my heart, my living heart, a thing I never had before. There was life in me; there were power and might; my pulse beat. The bulb put out sprouts; thoughts and feeling sprang up and burst forth into flower. I saw it, I bore it, and I forgot myself in its beauty. It is a blessing to forget oneself in others!
"It didn't thank me, it didn't even think of me - everybody admired it and praised it. It made me very happy; how much more happy it must have made it!
"One day I heard them say it deserved a better pot. They broke me in two - that really hurt - and the flower was put into a better pot; then they threw me out into the yard, where I lie as an old potsherd. But I have my memory; that I can never lose!"
The End
Besides pick-your-own apples, they sell the best apple cider doughnuts. And other yummies like golden honey.
