What I Got From Project Quilting

The second season of Project Quilting is over and it was both fun and exhausting.

What did I get? I am the grand prize winner for the season! I’ll be getting some great prizes (lots of fabric) and helpful comments from the judges. Most importantly I got 6 wonderful art quilts that I probably wouldn’t have made otherwise (technically I only have 5 because one has sold).

There were some really great competitors, which should be obvious since while I won first place over all, none of my individual quilts made it to first place (although 4 of them got second place).

I also learned more about how I like create. My main method of working was to read the challenge then go to my fabric stash and start looking through the fabric options. Usually that would start me thinking of possibilities and I’d sketch out a few layout options.

With the exception of “Let a Thousand Flowers Bloom”, all the other fabric was taken from my stash. I find it interesting to think that if I’d hadn’t had the fabric I did at the time, my projects could have ended up quite different.

Below I’ve given some more information about the six quilts, including what I would have done differently, although most of the changes I would have made were how I constructed the quilt and not in the design or fabrics.

"Carnival of Colors"

for the Primary Colors challenge

What I would have done differently: I thought that fusing the color squares to the background and covering the edges with cord would save some time, but I don’t think that it did. The cord was too thin to completely cover the edges so I ended up going back and quilting in the ditch inside the color squares. I think it would have gone better to just piece it in a more traditional way and the put the cords over the seams. This would have made the quilt smaller as part of the original fabric would have ended up as seam allowances.

To read more about "Carnival of Colors" click here.

"Sometimes I Dream of Flying"

for the What's in a Name challenge

Maybe this one was a little too ambitious as it was the largest one and took the longest to make, but it is the one that I’m the most proud of.

One of the reasons it took awhile was because I decided to add the traditional Birds in the Air blocks at the top and the bottom and I wasn’t paying enough attention because I ended up cutting twice as many pieces as I needed, but I ended up using some of them because I didn’t piece it together correctly.

Then there were some of the “field” pieces that I didn’t like the placement of during the quilting stage so I ended up hand appliquéing some different fabrics on top of the original pieces. I don’t think I mentioned this is the original blog post but some of the fabrics I used the “wrong” sides of because I wanted them to be lighter in color.

What I would have done differently: paid more attention when piecing the Birds in the Air blocks and made the correctly the first time and planned the field fabrics better so I wouldn’t have had to replace some. 

To read more about "Sometimes I Dream of Flying" click here.

"not even the rain: a love poem"

for the Be My Valentine challenge

I originally had the middle sections (with the flowers and text) covered with a nice sheer fabric to help hide the places where I machine appliquéd the fabric with the text but then I decided it was too subtle so I had to cut the sheer out. I was really concerned that the piece was too plain. I had planned on adding the fun fur all along and I was surprised how much of a difference it made. One of the judges gave me a perfect 10 on this quilt, and it has already sold.

What I would have done differently: not put the sheer on in the first place.

To read more about "not even the rain: a love poem" click here.

"After the Rain"

for the Hardware Store Challenge

Since the first season of Project Quilting had the Office Store challenge, I was expecting something like this for this season. This was my favorite challenge because it came together fairly easily. I already had the fabric and since I’d bought them at the same time, I knew they went well together. Most of my time on this project was sewing the silver cord through the drain cover to make it appear less metallic and for me it was actually relaxing to do this.

This is my favorite of the six quilts and I there isn’t anything I would have changed about the way I made it. I love that it has a simplicity about it but also has movement and texture. I also really like our local hardware store.

To read more about "After the Rain" click here.

"Dancing Geese" for the Flying Geese challenge

I got my lowest score on this quilt (so it’s the one that was dropped from the total score) and this was probably my least favorite of the challenges and I think it’s because I’m not fond of working with contrasting color schemes. I took this to mean that we could only use the complimentary colors but some others interpreted that you could add some other colors as long as the contrasting colors were the most prominent.

It also took me awhile to come up with a layout for this quilt, I’ve got 21 pages of sketches. I’m not sure what I would have done differently, maybe gone with another layout or different color scheme.

There is, however, one judge’s comment that I’d like to address. “I don’t see any binding in any of your photos.” I used a facing technique because I DIDN’T want the binding to show. I really like this technique because it doesn’t interrupt the flow of the design, it takes the bulk out of the corners, and it helps the quilt to hang straighter. While facing might work better with art quilts, is an acceptable technique to use to bind quilts. 

To read more about "Dancing Geese" click here.

"Let a Hundred Flowers Bloom"

for the Large Scale Print challenge

Sometimes when I’m making a lot of custom quilts, I don’t have the luxury to go back and re-explore some techniques. For this quilt, I decided to incorporate a few ideas that I used in some of my other Project Quilting pieces.

I used the fabric mosaic technique that I used with the bird on “Sometimes I Dream of Flying” only I let the edges stay at whatever angle they ended up at and I covered them with netting.

I also used the yarn and ribbon embellishments similar to “After the Rain” except instead of letting them just hang down, I had them run horizontally so I had to attach them to the quilt so I did that using beads.

What I would have done differently: One of the judge’s comments was “I like to see mitered corners on a striped border.” I totally agree and usually do this, however the yellow inner border is so thin it was giving me problems when I tried to miter it, and after several unsuccessful attempts, I gave up on it.

An interesting side note to this challenge: the last several times I’ve been in quilt shops I’ve looked at several large scale prints and stripes with a new appreciation. I haven’t bought any, but I did consider some. 

To read more about "Let a Hundred Flowers Bloom" click here.

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I appreciate all the hard work that the competitors and judges did, plus extra kudos to Kim who co-ordinated the whole challenge. I urge other quilters to participate in this wonderful project. I’ll let you know when the next season starts, but until there there will be some off-season challenges (no prizes but you’ll have a month to complete your projects). More info will be posted soon.

not even the rain: a love poem - Project Quilting Time to Vote

At left: "not even the rain: a love poem" 19" x 26" Project Quilting, Season 2, Challenge 3: Be My Valentine, Feb. 2011  

Quick recap of the challenge "Be My Valentine":
1. The inspiration is Be My Valentine.
2. The main colors of your project will be something other than red or pink although you can use small amounts of red and pink.
3. You cannot use the word "Valentine" on the front of your project but you may use it in the name.

First I started thinking about Valentines and ways people express their love to another person. I thought about love letters, and specifically classic love poems. I decided to include part of the poem “somewhere I have never travelled” by e.e. cummings, which my husband wrote in a love letter to me when we were dating.

Closeup of poem and ginko leaves

somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond

any experience, your eyes have their silence:

in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,

or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look easily will unclose me

though i have closed myself as fingers,

you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens

(touching skilfully, mysteriously) her first rose

or if your wish be to close me, i and

my life will shut very beautifully, suddenly,

as when the heart of this flower imagines

the snow carefully everywhere descending;

nothing we are to perceive in this world equals

the power of your intense fragility: whose texture

compels me with the colour of its countries,

rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes and opens;

only something in me understands

the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)

nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands 

Closeup of the clover and blue flowers

Next I came up with a few design ideas then went into my fabric stash to see what I had in green, blue and purple that made me think of romance. I found a piece of fabric that had 7 different floral and leaf images, so I decided to make a quilt that incorporated items that someone would keep to remind them of their love including the second and final stanza of the poem, some ribbons, heart-shaped beads and charms, a little key and a small bag with a pair of hearts inside.

Closeup of the fern and rose bud

I fussy-cut the floral and leaf fabric (using the leftover piece for the label on the back), printed the text that I wanted to add (the poem and text in two other places). I pieced a thin grayish-green inner border and a yellow/green/blue/tan batik for the outer borders.

Detail of hearts inside a sheer bag on the fern quilt

The six pieces were sewn with a pillowcase binding and then top stitched around the edges. I did quilting stitch-in-the-ditch on both sides of the inner border then quilted around the flowers and leaves. I even added some hand quilting some of the leaves to give them definition.

I wanted to use some fun fur to soften the edges and I wanted it along the outside and not on top of the quilt so I used a zigzag stitch to attach it. Then I added my embellishments.

The final step was to use beads to connect the quilts both vertically and horizontally. (The heart-shaped bead on the second quilt on the right side is actually a navy blue, although it looks black in the photos). The handing rod hangs from a cream colored ribbon.

More about not even the rain

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Click on any of the photos to see them larger.

To see the other entries, go to the Be My Valentine page.