Last winter I became slightly obsessed with “the squares” of modernist painter Josef Albers. After carefully choosing one of Albers’s color studies to guide me I designed a simple modern quilt as homage to his work. Then I got bored. The yellow hues reminded me of a sunset—and what better animal to add than a flamingo, I thought? Flamingos are such weird and lovable beasts! A few years back, my husband and I visited a flamingo colony on Mexico’s Yucatán peninsula. To my surprise it wasn’t just the flamingos who were bright pink there, but also the water, the sand and even the flamingo poop my husband sank in (I’m still giggling). Like my husband’s sandals, the pink flamingos have absorbed the pigment of their prey, a shrimp-like crustacean that turns their bodies into a hot shade of pink. If this color spectacle wasn’t enough, the flamingos insisted on taunting us with their disproportional, skinny legs, their weird standing position and gate.

This sunny hand-stitched quilt covers a queen-size bed, at 72 x 80 inches and sleeps two lovers comfortably. While the front and back are 100 percent cotton, the batting is 100 wool, which makes the quilt particularly soft and cozy, perfect to brighten up those cold fall nights. It can be machine-washed and line-dried.

Contact me at sabineheinlein@gmail.com for price.

Photos: Rebecca Krasnik