Tag Archives: challenge quilt

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This quilt was kind of three and a half years in the making, and also less than a day. This week's one-week Project QUILTING challenge is Fussy Cut! Like the last PQ challenge I challenged myself to a modern traditional design using a traditional block as a jumping off point. The most popular response to my instagram poll indicated Churn Dash as the favorite traditional block. That made me think of one of the first quilts I ever made.

I planned to start early in the week. (Don't I always?) And then I found myself without a stitch sewn on Friday night. I had a rough plan and had selected some fabric... 3 1/2 years ago. Way back in 2017 my friend Lorinda was hosting Color Play Friday. Each week she gave us a prompt and this fabric pull is from the week of Willy Wonka. I liked it so much I could never bring myself to put the fabrics back in my stash with their color companions, instead leaving this little pile together on the shelf this whole time. When I had a bit of a design plan, I opened the cabinet to find some fussy cuttable fabric. After picking out a couple potential options I didn't really love, my eye landed on this pile. Voila!

Fussy cutting is selecting a specific part of the fabric often used to isolate a particular motif, but it can be used to feature a particular section of a design based on color or directionality of the print. It can be a very effective design element. Sometimes fussy cutting means using the unicorn. Sometimes fussy cutting means avoiding the unicorn.

So after 4pm yesterday with less than 18 hours until the deadline I cut my first pieced of fabric and sewed my first stitches. After breaks for assisting my son with cooking dinner and having dinner with my family I resumed sewing. I finished up just before midnight and stayed up even later to photograph, blog, and linkup. There are already over 170 finished projects linked up for the week. Be sure to hop over and check them out! And mark your calendar to join us for the next Project QUILTING challenge starting on January 31.

The outer edges of both of these fabrics are the on grain. I chose this angle as a means to fussy cut to feature the flowers in the HSTs. You can see the HST unit after I trimmed it to size below in the bottom left.

Since these fabrics were from my Willy Wonka fabric pull, I chose to use the brown and gold as chocolate bars with a bit of golden ticket peeking out.

I opted for a pillowcase binding and minimal echo quilting in Aurifil 50wt. Chocolate (#2360) on the chocolate bars and Dark Violet (#2582) on the background. It finished at 16" x 16" -- I've Got a Golden Ticket!

Thanks for visiting! Check out all the other fussy cutting that went on this week on Kim's Project QUILTING linkup.

I'm also linking up with my linkup, Show Me Something. ;-)

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With the start of the new year comes the start of the new Project QUILTING season. I'm hoping to participate in all six challenges this season. In 2020, I started my Improv Log Cabin Mini series with a couple of the Project QUILTING challenges. This year, just before the first challenge was announced I decided I would layer my own design challenge on top of the Project QUILTING challenge's again this year. I'll be using modern traditional design in my challenge quilts this season.

Modern Traditionalism in quilting refers to a design that is built on a traditional quilt block combined with more modern design elements. These elements can include use of bold colors and prints, improvisational piecing, minimalism, expansive negative space, and/or alternate grid work.

This week our challenge was a color challenge, Illuminating + Ultimate Gray, the 2021 Pantone Color of the Year. I love a color challenge, because you can do just about anything with it as far as the design goes. I went about picking a traditional quilt block to design off of and started selecting solids from my stash that worked with the yellow and gray theme.

I chose the card trick quilt block. I began by changing the elements of the corner of the block, instead extending the "card color" to the corners. Then I offset this quilt block in my design and extended the lines from the block into the negative space surrounding it. Finally, through the value choices of my colors, I gave the quilt a look of transparency.

My quilt finishes at 16 1/2" x 16 1/2". It has very minimal quilting, because, ya know... one-week deadline. I didn't start cutting fabric until Friday, so I didn't leave myself much time.

My quilt is labeled on my corner triangles, included for ease of hanging. First finish of the year!

Thanks for visiting, please hop over to Kim's blog to see the over 225 submissions for the Illuminating + Ultimate Gray challenge.

I'm linking up with the Pantone 2021 Artisan Challenge. I'm also linking up with my linkup, Show Me Something. ;-)

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When I heard that this week's Project QUILTING challenge was Vibrant and Vivacious I immediately thought rainbow.

Before I forget, this is your official reminder that we're nearing the end of Show Me Something Rainbow! Be sure to link up your finished rainbow projects by the end of March. There's still time to finish something up in the next nine days. :-)

I chose a rainbow of fabric in lighter and more vibrant tones. I realized as I started piecing that my wonky, irregular log cabin wasn't really very wonky, but I went with it. My strips were cut without a ruler, approximately 1.5" wide.

Once my quilt top was complete, I started to consider my options for quilting. I couldn't resist pulling a rainbow of thread for the quilting. Including white for attaching the binding, I used 14 colors of thread on this project.

From left to right, the thread I used: Aurifil 50wt Light Lilac (#2510), Light Robin's Egg (#2710), Light Avocado (#2886), Champagne (#2105), Fleshy Pink (#2420), Baby Pink (#2423), Dove (#2600), Red (#2250), Burnt Orange (#1133), Yellow (#2135), Green (#2870), Medium Delft Blue (#2783), Dark Violet (#2582).

I considered wishbone quilting but opted for this variation with loops on one end and points on the other. In the end, I like that my quilting looked like a series of Vs for the Vibrant and Vivacious challenge. I wish I could say I planned it. ;-)

My quilt finished at 16" x 16". The great part about making a mini this size is that you can back it with a fat quarter. I chose this black and white silhouette fabric for my backing. I wanted black and white so my many colors of thread would be visible on the back.

Thanks for visiting. Be sure to hop over to Kim's blog to see the 100+ quilts made this week for the Vibrant and Vivacious challenge.

And on to my next rainbow project! I'm participating in the Mini Series SAL on Instagram and I've chosen a rainbow to feature in my blocks.

I've linked up to Free Motion Mavericks.