Tag Archives: challenge quilt

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I’m R. I’m six years old. I live in San Jose, and my quilt is called Mixed Up Signs. I got the idea from an old kids’ book called Mr. Pine’s Mixed Up Signs.

My quilt has four arrows pointing in all different directions. One block (top left) is themed “England," one (bottom right) is “Dots," one (bottom left) is “Outdoors," and one (top right) is “Random.” The white in my blocks are white-on-white. And my thread number is #2735 (Aurifil 50wt). The thread color is Medium Blue.

The reason I made arrows is that my Mom was making half-square triangles, and I told her that they looked like half an arrow. And she said, “How would you make an arrow?” And I said that I would write it down. So I did.

And we started making them. But first she said that there was a challenge, and I asked, "what is the challenge?" She said it was only red, white, and blue fabrics. And I said I wanted to do that challenge with arrows.

A couple days later, after we started making them, she said “So, you want your arrows to be facing all different directions?” I said, “No, I wasn’t thinking that, but I might actually do that.” Then a couple days after that, I said to myself, “I’m going to do different facing arrows like Mr. Pine’s Mixed Up Signs!”

I learned that I can make arrows, and that books can inspire you.

 

Mixed Up Signs
designed, pieced, quilted, and bound by R, age 6 1/2
with cutting, pressing, and supervision help from mom
12.5" x 12.5"

Linked up to Project QUILTING 10.2. R's quilt is #72 in the linkup. And my submission is #74. Voting is open! You can vote for your ten favorites.

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Last Sunday was the beginning of season 10 of Project QUILTING, a series of one-week quilt challenges. I've participated for the past two years and this year I'm a sponsor. The theme for this week's challenge is Hope Springs Eternal. Well... I was out of town for the first 4 days of the one week challenge, and then I had to spend Thursday and Friday making serious progress on a quilt deadline that I'll be posting on my blog tonight. This means I didn't even have time to think too much about this challenge until yesterday.

I had a hard time with this theme. In the end, with 14 hours until the deadline (including overnight... and I needed to sleep) I had hope I could crank out a small quilt. How's that for hope springing eternal? My initial goal was a mug rug, then I decided on placemat sized, and in the end I trimmed it to 18.5" x 18.5". I'll be linking up with less than 15 minutes to spare.

I used a lovely piece of hand dyed fabric from my friend Mel Beach and my Planned Improv: All About Angles technique. After demoing my technique on Wednesday (7 times!) I'm excited to work on some All About Angles projects.

I used two sizes of Aurifil Light Leaf Green (#1147) for this quilt. It was pieced and bound with Aurifil 50wt and quilted with Auriful 80wt. I hadn't used 80wt and really love the fine line it creates. It's certainly quilting that's all about the texture and not the color. I chose a fast motif from my recent class with Christa Watson. It's way fancier than a basic meander, but not much more difficult.

Here's the basic breakdown of how I made the quilt start to finish in under 14 hours.

Saturday
8pm - pull fabric
8:50pm - cut fabric
9:07pm - start sewing
10:50pm - bedtime

Sunday
5:45am - back at the machine
6:20am - finished quilt top 
7am - quilting begins
7:45am - done quilting
8:40 - binding going on
9:25am - photos, then blog post
9:48am - linkup

Congratulations to everyone who finished the challenge! View them all at the Project QUILTING 10.1 linkup. Voting is open, so click over to check out the 124 submissions and vote for your 10 favorites.

 

I've linked up to Needle and Thread Thursday.

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The issue 5 call for entries to the Mini Quilt Gallery of Curated Quilts closes today and I've finished my (well, our) submission just in time.

I'll start with that "our" part. This color palette is not my typical palette. I purchased the Kona solids Shadow, Yarrow, Metal, Sunny, Moss, and Windsor just to participate in the challenge and they sat there, waiting for inspiration to strike. I had an idea, but unfortunately I'd seen that another maker made a nearly identical piece. On June 10th my son walked into my sewing room and I said, "I need a brilliant idea. I need a brilliant quilting idea." He responded, "arrange them lightest to darkest for me," and got to work.

His initial idea was to color block with six large rectangles. Then I filled him in on the theme of Connections/Improv. We discussed what improv meant and settled a plan. I would cut the fabric into quadrilaterals with scissors and he would arrange them on the design wall. I cut a few of each color, and as he filled the space he instructed me to cut particular colors to fill in the gaps he had.

I did all the piecing. I enjoyed the puzzle of putting together his design. It includes straight seams, smooth curves, and a set-in seam. We had to add a couple pieces in the top right to keep the project large enough for the challenge.

Then I went back to G to discuss quilting. I knew I wanted pretty dense quilting (but not matchstick) and I had four matching 50 wt Aurifil colors to use: Yellow #2135, Dove #2600, Medium Grey #1158, and Medium Delft Blue #2783. If I'd had all six colors I would have been inclined to quilt tone on tone in each section. I'm so glad I didn't. I asked G what area of the quilt he liked the most and wanted to emphasize. He liked the lower left, so I made that the focal point of my quilting. My quilting was done by walking foot and random color changes. I really like the effect.

I love that this challenge allowed me to connect with my son. It was the perfect size project for us to work on together. It finished at 10" x 10", with a faced binding. Thanks for the inspiration, Curated Quilts! Congratulations to all the other makers who have submitted their mini quilts. 121 so far!

You may have seen my i Mini that I created for the Minimalism challenge in issue 3 of CQ. (Fun fact, it's currently hanging in the San Mateo County Fair.)

G has made 5 of his own quilts. Check them out:

I've linked up to Needle and Thread Thursday and TGIFF.