The Tortilla Quilt by Jane Tenorio Coscarelli

For my third challenge I’ve chosen the book The Tortilla Quilt. In each of Jane’s bilingual books, she would include a story, a recipe and a quilt pattern.  This book includes a tortilla recipe the grandmother would make for the whole family.

The Tortilla Quilt is a beautiful story set in 1880.  The story is about two friends, Maria and Sarah, who learn to quilt with Maria’s grandmother using flour sacks and clothing scraps and when completed they end up giving her their very first quilt they made.  The story describes the process the girls follow to design and make the quilt. The story ends with the quilt being passed down to Maria’s daughter and becoming a family heirloom.  

I continued the use of black thread to give the feel of an illustration, for the background I used bright yellow commercial fabric that I coffee dyed to tone down the color and used an acrylic wash on the floor to look like Saltillo tiles, free motion quilted grid lines, plants and title, hand stitched the butterfly’s flight, drew and cutout raw edge appliqués, used a dried flower stem to make the cross, made a miniature quilt using Jane’s uneven nine patch pattern and of course a butterfly representing Jane.