Custom wall quilt for the Becksvoort family, February 2024 / 36"x36"
Kaleidoscope quilt, January 2024
Christmas quilt for my parents, Christmas 2023
Christmas quilt for the Biette family, Christmas 2023
Homestead Heart quilt, Winter 2023
Warm Sunlight quilt, Winter 2023
Embracing Winter quilt, Winter 2023
Autumn Leaves quilt, Winter 2023
Summer's Goodbye quilt, Winter 2023
Fall Sunset quilt, Winter 2023
Pillow cover collection, Winter 2023
Pillow cover collection, Fall 2023
Dark Gemstones, Fall 2023
Dyed Checkerboard quilt, Fall 2023
Cotton Candy quilt, Fall 2023
Prism Window quilt, Feb 2023
The PrismWindow quilt is a dazzling display of colors showcasing a kaleidoscope of vibrant hues. Each patchwork piece incorporates a spectrum of colors - both hand dyed and designer fabric - that radiate joy and energy.
Welcome Home quilt, Feb 2023
The Welcome Home patchwork quilt is timeless. It weaves together nostalgia, comfort, and warmth. This quilt was handcrafted with love and care, using a harmonious blend of vibrant colors, intricate patterns, and a mix of hand dyed and designer print fabrics. Each piece within this quilt tells a unique story, representing a new home and precious moments shared by generations. The Welcome Home patchwork quilt is not just a cozy blanket; it is a symbol of love, tradition, and the enduring beauty of handcrafted artistry.
Dust + Waves Sampler, early 2021
This sampler quilt draws inspiration from both the vast expanse of the desert and the enchanting allure of the ocean. Like the desert, patches of warm earthy tones, reminiscent of sun-kissed skin, are juxtaposed against cool and serene hues reflecting the depths of the ocean. With the desert's strength entwined with the ocean's tranquility, this sampler quilt embodies the harmony between two seemingly disparate worlds.
Dust + Waves Diamonds, early 2021
Dust + Waves Desert Medallions, early 2021
Dust + Waves X, early 2021
Dust pillow covers, early 2021
Waves pillow covers, early 2021
Dust + Waves pillow covers, early 2021
Desert Gems, Spring 2020
The Desert Gems quilt was the last quilt I finished while living in the Arizona desert. It was inspired by the gemtone colors of the Tucson gem show, a huge gathering of thousands of gem and mineral vendors that happens there every year. It featured mostly my hand dyed fabrics with a few designer prints mixed in, and bright golden yellow block centers.
Winter Solstice, Winter 2019/2020
The Winter Solstice quilt was inspired by the desert sunrise outside of our mountainside home on the morning of the winter solstice. The sky lit up in warm tones of pinks and oranges, as the seasons changed in the northern hemipshere. Heading toward the light and warmer times of the year, the dark gets smaller.
Saguaro Flower, Winter 2019/2020
The Saguaro Flower quilt was designed as something softer and more neutral for winter, created with my hand dyed fabrics (ice dyed, as well as naturally dyed with avocado and tumeric), designer prints, and vintage fabrics. This was part of a collection that season, which was designed around using fabrics from my stash, keeping designs more simple, and offering quality at a lower pricepoint - proving that sometimes simple really is better.
Desert Stripes, Winter 2019/2020
Along with the Saguaro Flower quilt and the Desert Dweller quilt, the Desert Stripes quilt was part of the “keep it simple and accessible” collection, using fabrics available from my personal stash. Very few new supplies were needed for this collection. The purpose was to make beauty with what I already had on hand. This meant the designs were not necessarily cohesive to each other, but overall the collection had its ties: there are a few of the same fabrics in each quilt.
Desert Dweller, Winter 2019/2020
The Desert Dweller quilt was the first born in the Winter collection, made from fabrics from my personal stash - and inspired by the magic of creating at its most basic Choosing colors is magic. Interpreting visions is magic. I was reminded of times I could feel colors, times I had heard voices, times I had created solely based on intuition. Like photographs of moments in time. The pattern of this quilt were meant to mimic the pilgrimage and paths many of us take to the get to the desert (myself included), partial pieces that eventually feel more whole within their surroundings.
our bed quilt!, Winter 2019/2020
Early in 2019, I started collecting fabrics for a bed quilt for us. We knew we would be moving from the desert to my home state of Maine within a year or so, and I wanted to create one big heirloom project for us to be able to take with us. After years of always creating quilts that would end up in everyone else’s homes, I was ready to make one for my own. I gathered designer prints including Liberty of London, my hand dyes, and some vintage fabrics including one that belonged to my great-grandmother to use in this quilt. I sent it off to the Eleventh House Quilt Studio in Denver, CO to be longarm quitled by Shawna Doering. This quilt felt so otherworldly to me because returning back to Maine had never really been on my radar, except for when I felt like I was failing. So, making the conscious decision to go back felt like a release - I didn’t have anything to prove anymore, I had battled my demons, and we were ready for a new adventure. This quilt was about setting goals, setting boundaries, holding space for the things we want, and working hard. For us to be able to sleep under it every night is such a treasure.
Wandering Stars, Fall 2019
Each stitch, a mile I had to travel to get here. The Wandering Stars quilt was inspired by all of the places we wander before we find our “home”, the gold center star is us - the center of our world the whole time. Returning to ourselves while we seek. Each mile different from the next, each mile the work we have to put in to show up for ourselves every single day. Some days my path felt like a labryrinth, a maze I couldn’t navigate, a revolving door spinning spinning. I was the start at the center of it all, the hearth in my own home, learning how to navigate accepting and choosing love every day. Strong isn’t always easy, but it also is not a choice.
Wandering Stars, Fall 2019
The Wandering Stars collection included seven pillow covers alongside the quilt. Inspired by the same feelings, and created using similar fabrics, the pillow covers featured some of my favorite magenta and gold hand dyed fabrics made by me.
Book of Shadows, Fall 2019
I created a small collection of Halloween inspired pillow covers, mixing my hand dyed fabrics with prints. Halloween is a special holiday for me, and it felt only natural to offer a limited amount of pillow covers celebrating it.
Blooming Desert, Summer 2019
Although the name of the Blooming Desert quilt seemed obvious in the Summer of 2019 - directly in the middle of the desert exploding with blooming and blossoming plants of every kind - the design for this quilt was several years in the making. It started in 2017 as a collection of pillow covers, that I re-worked in 2019 to put together into a quilt. I took the original six pillow cover blocks and mirrored them into a quilt of twelve. This quilt quickly became my most popular, most favorite-ed and most shared on social media. And although it was created mostly with solid fabrics, it is one of the most complex designs in my portfolio.
Desert City Sunset, Summer 2019
Appropriately named, the Desert City Sunset quilt was designed to mimic the amazing desert sunsets shining in through city windows, bouncing off the brightly colored painted adobe and tall murals of Tucson, AZ, which I called my home for a few years. It was constructed with my hand dyed fabrics, and vintage and modern solids. It was less about busy fabrics and more about color playing together.
Whatever, Summer 2019
The Whatever quilt was over five years in the making, as it was the final project that I started prior to moving from Maine to Los Angeles in 2014. It was meant to be a commentary on so many things: against the need to use only popular expensive designer fabrics to make a quilt (it was pieced using only store-bought calico fabrics), against the notion that all quilts should be “pretty”, and as a general F-you to acquaintances in my life who were unhappy with the way I was planning to move across the country. This quilt top sat unfinished through all of the many moves I made out West for five years, until I finally decided it was time to dust it off and finish it. A unique piece that I designed from scratch and improv pieced, that can never be truly duplicated.
Gemstone Galaxy, Spring 2019
The Gemstone Galaxy quilt is a black to purple, purple to pink, pink to orange, orange to yellow + green ombre. This quilt was created with over 400 half square triangle blocks and 200 fabrics. I followed the diagram that I had drawn and colored in to a tee, to ensure that I would get the color melt that I had envisioned. It was photographed in the middle of Saguaro National Park at dawn on a very chilly morning.
Gemstone Galaxy, Spring 2019
The Gemstone Galaxy collection included 11 quilted pillow covers as well as the quilt. They featured colorways coordinating with the quilt: various ombre shades of black, blue, purple, magenta, orange, yellow, and green. Most of the fabrics were leftover from the quilt, and had been dyed by me.
Desert Magic, Winter 2018/2019
The Desert Magic pillow cover collection included 21 one of a kind pillow covers created with my hand dyed fabrics and coordinating print fabrics. It was comprised of 4 rainbow striped, 4 mixed jewel toned, 2 pastel, 3 blue, 5 orange, and 3 red + purple pillow covers. It was inspired by the connection I felt between the fabrics I was dyeing at the time, and my surroundings in the desert (sunrises and sunsets and night skies, trips into the desert to walk among the cacti, and the animal neighbors we saw often - snakes, havelina, coyotes, owls, bats, hawks, etc).
Desert Summer, Fall 2018
The Desert Summer quilt was inspired by just that: the hot temperatures of the summertime in the Arizona desert. It was photographed in the valley of mountains surrounding Saguaro National Park on a hot late-Summer afternoon. This quilt was created with solid fabrics only, in a random log cabin design.
Repurposed Log Cabins, Summer 2018
These pillow covers were created using a quilt top that I made a year prior that never got finished. I cut the pillow cover pieces on the diagonal and quilted each separately. I love that they got a new life as pillows, even though they never made it as a quilt. Most of the fabrics used were from thrifted vintage and second-hand fabrics/linens.
Monsoon Sunset, Summer 2018
The colors and fabrics for this quilt were dyed by me, and inspired by the desert sunsets during monsoon season. Oranges, purples, yellows, pinks, red.. Glowing colors with giant stormy clouds. A summer sight unlike any other.
Custom baby quilts, Summer 2018
A friend of mine in Maine found out she was pregnant, and a mutual friend of ours secretly commissioned a custom baby quilt for her. Hilariously, my pregnant friend did the same for herself. And so, two matching baby quilts for the same baby were made - one as a wall hanging and the other to be used in her nursery chair (and eventually her bed as she gets bigger). Completed using fabrics I dyed, I decided to make them match but not exactly the same. They were both designed using the colors of the nursery art as inspiration.
Desert Blossoms, Spring 2018
Designed and created just after the Rainy Desert quilt, the Desert Blossoms quilt followed the same radiating ombre design. Also made entirely with my hand dyed fabrics, it was inspired by the gold, green, purple, magenta colors of the blossoming cacti flowers of Spring. It was inspired by the way color can surprise you, as this color grouping was a bit outside of my comfort zone at the time. A bright magenta flower on a green cactus, a little purple or yellow flower in dusty and dirty sand - the desert stood by as so much was taken away from me, but also always gave me hope. It was my home. I was happy to be able to tap into my inevitable love of color and color play to create this piece.
Rainy Desert, Spring 2018
Alongside the Rainy Desert quilt, I created a collection of 12 coordinating pillow covers - both all over ice dyed and some patchwork. The pillow covers and the quilt were photographed in Joshua Tree, California. They made the 800 mile trip back and forth from one desert to another, making this a very well traveled collection.
Rainy Desert, Spring 2018
Designed during a particularly rainy Winter and Spring in the desert, cacti were starting to bloom. The colors seemed to follow me around. Made solely with fabrics dyed by me, this quilt took on a life of its own very early in the process. I designed it as I went along, not following a diagram or even a color pattern. I started in the middle and radiated outwards, intuitively grabbing colors as it felt right. It turned out to be my favorite color palette and one of my favorite quilts ever. It now lives with a friend in Arizona, where it belongs!
The Returning, Spring 2018
The Returning collection was the first made using only my hand dyed fabrics. When I dyed the fabrics, I recognized them immediately - they were my desert heart. Joshua Tree, CA: the place where old memories were put to rest and new ones were built. The place I once thought I might never see the same way again, but upon returning I realized it had never really changed. You can always go back, sometimes you just have to do it differently with new perspective. The collection represented everything hopeful and beautiful and grounding. Its about falling in love again, but also about returning to myself.
The Returning, Spring 2018
The Returning quilt was photographed in the desert landscape of Rimrock, CA (close to Joshua Tree), and modeled by my partner. This was over the first weekend we spent alone together out there. It was only appropriate that he model it.
The Returning collection was the first made using only my hand dyed fabrics. When I dyed the fabrics, I recognized them immediately - they were my desert heart. Joshua Tree, CA: the place where old memories were put to rest and new ones were built. The place I once thought I might never see the same way again, but upon returning I realized it had never really changed. You can always go back, sometimes you just have to do it differently with new perspective. The collection represented everything hopeful and beautiful and grounding. Its about falling in love again, but also about returning to myself.
The Dawn, Winter 2017/2018
This quilt was inspired by what you’d think: the colors of the desert dawn. It was created between Thanksgiving and Christmas, a tough time of year for makers pushing through the holiday season, and a tough time of year for folks who are far from family (like I was). The idea for this quilt came fast and grew quickly.
Blackbird Stardust, Winter 2017/2018
Coordinating with the Blackbird Stardust quilt, this pillow cover was the only one of its kind. It was photographed in an abandoned cabin in Joshua Tree, found down a dirt road. It was completely empty and full of broken walls and pieces. It seemed perfect to photograph the one lonely pillow.
Blackbird Stardust, Winter 2017/2018
Photographed in the middle of the Johsua Tree desert, the Blackbird Stardust quilt was created using my hand dyed fabrics and solid fabrics only. It was inspired by the smell of home. And by the way we let some people hold us - some hold us up, some hold us down, and some simply hold us if we let them. I was finally ready to no longer be inspired by the things I thought were once a certain way but were not. Instead I was ready to be inspired by the things that simple were. Like a long dusty roadtrip, a bonfire, or an amazing old pair of lived-in denim jeans.
Desert Roads, Winter 2017/2018
The Desert Roads quilt is one of the only quilts that still lives with me. I had originally put it up for sale but decided to keep it shortly after. It was made using my hand dyed fabrics and solids only. It was inspired by the way that we choose our own choices. We pick our paths. How often I threw caution to the wind, put the windows down in the car and volume up on the stereo, and just drove. Gone down dusty dirt roads over and over until the unforgiving and vast desert seemed just a little bit smaller. Gone past creosote, saguaros, dry river beds, Joshua trees, ocotillo, sage, wildflowers, mountains, long stretches of nothing. Past houses and homes and cabins and abandoned everything. Gone past the fortunate, the broken, the brave, the quiet, the content, the trying, the hurt, and the undone. The desert was my home but the roads are endless and full of secrets.
Expanding, Fall 2017
The Expanding collection was 14 pillow covers featuring my own hand dyed fabrics for the first time. I had spent months learning to dye using the ice dye method and was so excited to finally use my own fabrics in my projects. This collection was inspired by the emotional and physical work it takes to grow beyond the boxes we keep ourselves in. Each was a one of a kind, and also inspired by the colors of the desert landscape, storms, skies, and plants; but most importantly by the time it takes to and the ways we move and grow and push ourselves beyond the constants. Expanding.
Lovers & Landscapes, Summer 2017
The Lovers & Landscapes pillow cover collection included 18 quilted pillow covers. Each was made using batiks, marbled, and designer prints.
“Lovers don’t finally meet somewhere. They’re in each other all along.” -Rumi
Another J-Tree Sunset, Summer 2017
This quilt was made from store-bought marbled, solid, and designer print fabrics. This quilt was inspired by a sunset seen in the Joshua Tree desert, where the quilt was also photographed. But it was also an ode to loving the way that I create. A few years prior, someone had told me that the way I saw and interpreted things with fabric didn’t make sense the way I thought it did - that no one would be able to read my mind to know what the projects were “supposed to be”. I realized a few years later, once I started settling into my style, that his way of seeing things was far too linear and not abstract enough. I don’t expect anyone to see what I see. See what YOU see.
Desert, Summer 2017
The Desert collection was a collection of ombre style pillow covers. Each one was inspired by a different aspect of the desert: Soul, Cholla (cactus), Monsoon, Divine, Magic, Spirit, Blossom, and Ground.
Dark Sky, Spring 2017
This quilt was created around the one year anniversary of a major personal trauma that I experienced, and it became a very cathartic quilt project born out grief and hope. The black/blue/white ombre was created using mostly designer prints and a few solids.
“A star falls from the sky and into your hands. Then it seeps through your veins and swims inside your blood and becomes every part of you. And then you have to put it back into the sky. And its the most painful thing you’ll ever have to do and that you’ve ever done. But what’s yours is yours. Whether its up in the sky or here in your hands. And one day, it’ll fall from the sky and hit you in the head real hard and that time, you won’t have to put it back in the sky again. “ -C. JoyBell
The First, Spring 2017
This was the first pillow cover collection that I designed. There were a dozen pillow covers created almost entirely by solid fabrics to tell the story of the desert sky. I was preparing to open up my new webshop under the name AprilTwoEighty Quilts, and beginning my brand, although I had been selling quilts for almost ten years. I was ready to start taking it seriously to create a true business for myself. This was the first. Of many.
That Joshua Tree Sunset, Winter 2017/2016
This quilt, completed almost entirely out of solid fabrics, except for just a few batiks/prints, was completely constructed in my tiny one room casita in Tucson, AZ - it barely fit on the floor to be basted for quilting. It was created using a photo of a sunset taken in Joshua Tree, CA. I had chased that sunset to a tiny bar with a friend. It was an experience in trust, patience, vulnerability, space and self. It was the first time I had taken a photo and directly interpreted it in design and color to fabric placement. It was purchased by a longtime friend and used as the backdrop of her Los Angeles wedding that I was able to drive out to and participate in.
Baby You’re a Star, Winter 2017/2016
This quilt was a custom baby quilt commission, measuring 44x56”. It was made from the brightest magenta, hot pink, orange, yellow, and aqua fabrics in my stash. The colors were such a great expression of healing and voice in art.
2016, all the way back to 2007!
Most of these quilts did not have a name and were not part of a collection, but all were sold (a few were gifts).
I think that sharing old work alongside new work is really important. There is a progression, learning, changing, honing in on my style.
Although I learned to quilt as a pre-teen, I didn’t start selling quilts until sometime around 2007 - back when I sold a quilt for $200…
These days my work is worth much more and the prices are much higher, but pricing aside it is the craft that has always kept me continuing on.
