A New Day Yesterday - Project Quilting

"A New Day Yesterday," 8.5" x 20.5", made by Pam Geisel for Project Quilting, Season 12, Challenge 1: Illuminating + Ultimate Gray

Recap for "Illuminating + Ultimate Gray":

Based on Pantone’s Color of the Year 2021 – which is actually two colors: PANTONE 17-5104 Ultimate Gray + PANTONE 13-0647 Illuminating. Your project must be predominantly yellow and gray in it. You may add black and/or white, if you wish, but you do not have to. Fabrics may have other colors included in their print, but those colors may NOT be dominant.

I can't say that using just gray and yellow is something I've never done as I made "Whoo?" (left) in 2019. (And I probably would have used more of that Effervescent fabric this time if I had any left).

I also can't say that I didn't have a good amount of yellow and grays to chose from as I do.

What I can say about this project is that I kind of designed it backwards. Recently I've wrapped some of my art quilts around a canvas frame (like I did with "Whoo?") or put it in a frame. When I don't do that I usually use a facing sort of binding, which is all on the back and not visible from the front.

But in my stash of yellows and grays were two lovely striped fabrics, and striped fabrics are great for bindings, so I decided that I was going to make something with a visible binding (more about that later).

I did a rough sketch of my idea. I didn't want to try and figure out the angles and shapes for the background, which I wanted to piece, so I made a paper template to paper piece it together. I could have improvised but I wanted the two sides to mirror each other. I've done a few paper pieced projects in the past and I don't really like doing them because I feel they waste fabric. Also I have some trouble keeping the tops and bottoms and fronts and backs in the right order. Luckily this was a simple project and I managed to only cut one piece incorrectly but realized it before I sewed it.

The sun, moon, ground, trees, and leaves are all fused so I sewed down their edges during the quilting process.

I also added a piece of hand dyed yarn that has just a touch of red and blue in it.

When it came time to do the binding, I knew I wanted to use both the yellow and gray striped fabrics, but I wanted the yellow on the left and right sides and the gray on the top and bottom, so I sewed the yellow to the front then wrapped it around to the back. I cut the grays a little longer than I needed and folded the edges over so the raw edges wouldn't be exposed then I sewed them to the front and folded them to the back.

A few notes about some of my fabrics:

The black fabric with the stars on it was a piece that I bought while on vacation in 2014. I only bought 1/4 of a yard. I used it in "Sunrise Celebration" (also a Project Quilting piece).

The yellow striped fabric in the binding I used in "Let a Hundred Flowers Bloom" for a Project Quilting challenge back in 2011. (I believe that was the only Project Quilting challenge piece that I bought fabric for, other than the "Focus through the Prism" and the "Tradition Time Three" which both required using specific fabrics).

The second yellow stripe from the left (which has suns/stars printed on it) was one that I bought back in 2005 when I made a baby quilt for my niece.

More about A New Day Yesterday

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Click on any of the photos to see larger images.

To read more about Project Quilting, go here.

To see other entries for this challenge, visit the Illuminating + Ultimate Gray page.