Paint Chip Challenge Part 1

A couple weeks ago my quilt guild held our annual quilt show. I've got pictures of the quilts to show that I'm saving for the weeks I don't have anything I can share. This week I've been working on my farmer's wife blocks and my first blocks for the Supernova Friendship Swap. Since I want my partner to get the chance to see her block first I decided to share the first round of quilts from the Paint Chip Challenge. 

It was so much fun seeing how everyone interpreted this challenge. Everyone got to choose their own paint chips and could add white, blacks, and greys if they wanted. They could use a pattern or create their own design and there was no size guidelines so some people made bed sized quilts and others chose to make table runners and wall hangings.

Georgia Johnson 

I really debated grabbing this paint chip, but I wanted to have as many unique colors as I could. I love what Georgia did with all of the browns.

Mary DeYoung 

I'm not sure which magazine Mary got her pattern from, but she was inspired by the desert canons of Colorado.

Marcia McDowel

Marcia decided to do some stash busting with this. She made her quilt top first and then found a paint chip to match. I love that idea! If you look really closely at the picture you can see the hearts Marcia quilted into the space between the boxes. This girl has mad quilting skills and does everything on her home machine. 

Mary Winter

I think Mary said that this was the year of flying geese for her. I'm not certain, but I think she came up with this design herself while playing with the block.You can tell that she really had fun playing with this block and the monotone colors really makes the geese pop.

Jo Alberda

Jo makes some amazing art quilts. She has this really cool technique of essentially making fabric mosaics which she used for her challenge quilt. 

Lori Zwart

I love how Lori used her paint chip to inspire her table runner. I'm not sure if this is an original design to her or if she used a pattern.

Since there are 17 quilts that were entered into the Paint Chip Challenge I think I'm going to stop there. Keep watching for more Paint Chip quilts and general quilts from the show.

Blogger's Quilt Festival Spring 2014-Modern Quilts

I can't believe it's already time for the Blogger's Quilt Festival. I had so much fun seeing all of the amazing quilts last fall. I can't wait to see what everyone will add this time. Be sure to go check out Amy's blog to see some great quilts! This year I've decided to enter "Bloomin' Onion" in the Modern Quilts category and "Penguins on Parade" in the Original Design category (I'll share that in part 2!)

If you're a regular reader of my blog you might remember "Bloomin' Onion". I really wanted to do spring pictures, but ended up photographing this quilt during a blizzard. Since spring has finally come to Iowa I decided to do another photo shoot with this quilt. I'm writing up the pattern for this quilt, and I think this will be the cover shot. When the pattern came to me I had the name Chrysanthemum in my head. I decided to name the finished quilt "Bloomin' Onion" due to the onion backing, but it doesn't make sense for the pattern to be called that.

This year the members of my quilt guild were given a paint chip and challenged to make a quilt using at least three colors from our chip. I struggled for months to figure out what to do with my pink paint chip. One morning I woke up with the idea of a flower made using the drunkard's path block. Even after sketching the design for this quilt it wouldn't leave me alone. I pieced the top in four days (which included me going to my day job.)

Thankfully the spring quilt retreat was that weekend. We went to the quilt shop near the retreat center and I found some red onion fabric on the clearance rack. I couldn't believe how perfectly it matched my top. Saturday I basted the quilt and managed to do all of the circular quilting before the end of the day. This was my first time to do circular quilting. There is room for improvement, but I think I'll be using this style of quilting again in the future.

For a quilt label I used the fabrics from the front to make a fabric "paint" chip. Up against the white you can actually tell that the light fabric really is pink.

Bloomin' Onion

Recently on facebook on of my friends asked how frequently we listen to our inner quilter voices. I replied that I my inner quilter voice is loudest at 4a.m. Usually I can ignore it for a couple of hours and then write down my ideas when I'm ready to be awake. This quilt was different. After months of struggling with different ideas for the paint chip quilt I woke up one morning with a full design in my head. I love the drunkard's path blocks and the 7" size go together really fast so a few hours later I had this stack ready to go.

This idea wouldn't let me sleep so I found myself sewing a couple of hours before work each day and was finished with the top on Wednesday. Friday afternoon I found a great backing fabric and variegated pink thread and was back to work on this quilt the next morning. After basting the quilt I traced a spool of thread in the center to give me a circle to follow. I used my darning foot for the first few rounds and then switched to my walking foot. I did pick out my first attempt. The second attempt isn't as perfect as I want, but its pretty good for my first time doing circular quilting.

March in Iowa is very brown and muddy so I didn't want to lay this quilt on the ground. Spring (at least green grass) usually shows up over the course of a week and I was hoping for that to happen. I held out until yesterday afternoon when we were struck by a blizzard. Another quilter on facebook encouraged me not to let the forecast cancel my plans so after work I headed out with the quilt. I don't think she meant I was supposed to take pictures during the blizzard, but I kind of like all of the snow on the quilt.

My husband and I went out last weekend for my first attempt at photographing this quilt. There wasn't any snow, but the wind proved to be a challenge. Thankfully I was able to get one shot that showed the whole quilt (and is snow free!)

When I got inside from the blizzard photo shoot I hung the quilt in our hall to dry. I love how quilts will naturally drape themselves into beautiful arrangements. You can see the red onion fabric I used for the backing and binding and understand why this quilt has been named, "Bloomin' Onion."

Bloomin' Onion

original pattern

Kona Solids

56"x56"

Think Pink

I can't remember if I've mentioned my quilt guild's challenge this year or not. This year (at least as far as the challenge goes) is all about color. I was so excited when it came time to sign up for committees and I got to be on the challenge committee. Even more exciting was no one signed up at first so I didn't have to argue convince anyone that the paint chip challenge was the way to go. (One of the other members has joined the committee which will be really nice when it comes to setting up the quilts at the show, but she loved the paint chip challenge so I still got to go ahead with it.) 

My goal with this challenge was to let everyone have fun so there aren't a lot of rules. I think it confused some people at first because they'd ask questions and my answer was usually to shrug and say do what they want. In September everyone got to pick a paint chip to use as a color pallet for a quilt. (I debated putting the paint chips in an envelop, but I knew I wanted to pick mine and it didn't seem fair not to let everyone else choose their colors too.) The rules are to use at least three colors from our paint chips and we have the option of adding a neutral like white, black or grey. We can use prints provide all of the colors in our print follow our paint chip's color scheme. We have the option of designing our own quilt or using an existing pattern.  We're showing the completed quilts at our meeting in April so time is really running out on my quilt. This is the paint chip I chose.

I'm ordered some solids from Fat Quarter and discovered that my monitor isn't very accurate when it displays colors. The colors work together pretty well, but I'm worried about the two darker pinks not matching the paint chip very well. I do know where the paint chips came from so I could go find one with more pinks, or I might just let it be. It's somewhat hard to tell, but the lightest color is a very pale pink (surprisingly that one is an accurate match to my paint chip.) I've debated a few blocks, but I finally decided to keep it simple. Last winter I took a workshop on the drunkard's path block and fell in love. These blocks finish at 7" so it's going together pretty quickly. Next weekend I'm going on an overnight retreat with some ladies from my guild and I hope to finish up this quilt.

In honor of today's pink theme I decided I'd also share a picture of the tulips that are on my kitchen table. We still have a fair bit of snow outside so I've really loved seeing this promise of spring every morning when I wake up.