Helen Kelley | loose threads

    Six
    Delicious
    Flavors

"Ladies and gentlemen, this is the Jack Benny Program, brought to you by Jell-O–strawberry, raspberry, cherry, orange, lemon, and lime." Such was the grand introduction to that classic, old radio program.

It was delivered with great flair and backed by the sound of a full orchestra. We kids would chant the "six delicious flavors" along with the announcer. It was a kind of mantra, and every time we came to the "orange" part, I would be delighted. I loved orange; I always have. It is autumn now, and the world outside my window is orange, and once again I am delighted.

I love orange sherbet and mandarin oranges, duck a l'orange, and orange juice. I love orange sunsets and orange zinnias, orange maple leaves and orange goldfish and orange quilts. Orange sparkles my heart.

My love of orange may have something to do with my physical makeup. I have freckles, and orange is a part of me. When I was five, my big brother would chase me, threatening to pull out my freckles "by the root." He scared the living daylights out of me, but he never caught me, and I never lost a freckle. Now, I cherish my orange spots and feel sorry for those people who have pure, flawless complexions with rosy cheeks. Age spots on people with flawless skin look like blotches. Mine just look like big orange freckles.

Helen Kelley is a quiltmaker, lecturer, author, and teacher from Minneapolis, Minnesota. You can visit Helen on the Internet at her website www.helenkelley- patchworks.com or email Helen at this address: helen@helenkelley- patchworks.com.

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Generally, the only thing available to a quilter was 36"-wide Halloween costume material. I gleaned everything that I could find in a variety of fibers and finishes that was remotely orange. Even then, the array was so meager that when I pieced my quilt, I extended my choices by using both sides of the fabrics. To this day, when people look closely at that quilt, they ask me, "Hey, do you know that you used the wrong side of that fabric?" And I say, "Of course, I doubled my options."

I am fully aware that all the world does not love orange like I do. Luckily, quilt shops are filled with other delicious flavors to tickle your taste buds. You might prefer the glorious choices in strawberry, raspberry, cherry, lemon, and lime. Those reds and yellows, blues, greens, and purples come in seemingly infinite tones and tints, nuances and styles that include ethnic prints, batiks, sunsets, and evening stars.

Amazingly, every color has its bright side and its gentle side; each can be sharp and tingling or quiet and calming. We often think of blues and greens as restful, but when you find a lustrous aqua or a glorious, vibrating electric blue, or a green that is jazzed up with threads of gold, it radiates with energy. The exciting thing about all of this is that we now have a choice between vivacity or quiet, restful shades of the same hues. You can find them all on shop shelves. The menu there is tantalizing. Right next to one another, for example, might be the delicate, perfect pink of a gentle rose print, so fragile that it takes your breath away, and the hard, Day-Glo pink on a child's animal print. Just when you thought you knew what pink was, it becomes something different. And so it is with all of the colors"same flavors with tasty differences for all of us to sample.

When I walk into a quilt store, I might carry a scrap of paper with a precise list of what I need, such as exact measurements for fabric for borders or a backing. Yet when I leave, I always have something wonderful in my bag that I hadn't intended to buy. It's usually something delicious that I spotted high up on a shelf, something that caught my eye and tempted me, an unexpected treat. And for me, usually it is orange.

©HK 2006