Lucky Duck Dreams: Blogger's Quilt Festival

It's that time of the year again! Amy's Creative Side is sponsoring the Blogger's Quilt Festival. I had a hard time deciding which quilt to showcase. I decided to go with my favorite finish this past year.

1,2,3 Squared

(originally 1,2,3 Eternity but I couldn't remember the name when I filled out the quilt show form-LOL)

Original Pattern by Colleen Charlotte Yarnell

Made September 2011-February 2012

fabric: Jay MacCarrol's Habitat line

Freespirit solid-Dogwood gray

Made as part of Freespirit's Habitat Challenge to Modern Quilt Guilds for the Triangle Modern Quilt Guild in NC.

Here is the back made with more pieces of Habitat fabric.

My able assistant is my Dad. The pictures were taken in his beautiful backyard.

The basic pattern for this quilt was made up as I went along. I have found sometimes just playing with fabric allows a quilt to emerge.

I had this quilt 'Crosses' in the back of my mind as I created. I had made it in 1995 in a class taught by Sherri Wood at Thimble Pleasures, Carrboro, NC. We made the fabric by free cutting strips and sewing them together. The shapes were then cut for a kaleidoscopic block. I had to be different and turned the kite shape piece when cutting it out so the 'fabric' was vertical instead of horizontal. I surprised the teacher with this layout. It is that search for the secondary pattern that motivated my design.

So for the habitat quilt I started by cutting 1",2", and 3" strips from all of the fabrics including the Dogwood gray.

And then sewed them randomly together to create 'fabric' pieces to work with.

I used my 12" square ruler to carefully cut out 4 squares. These became the center of the quilt. I trimmed the leftover pieces into 16 triangles. I then used MS Publisher on my computer to play with layouts using the center squares and the left over triangles.

I cut, pasted, and manipulated photos of parts of the quilt to create this digital image.

I put it on point and added the large gray triangles. I always find it fun when something looks a little boring to turn it on point. It gives the design a completely different look. It is why I hang 'Crosses' on point.

I machine quilted it on a borrowed Viking machine. This quilt was not without drama. I was finishing two quilts for the Forsyth Piecer's and Quilter's Guild quilt show the next week. It was Saturday morning and I had to turn in the quilts Monday for the show.

My red and white quilt was finished. I had just started organically quilting lines on the Habitat quilt from the center out. I followed the lines of the squares in the quilt. All of a sudden my Babylock Sophia, my new machine I had barely used, froze up needle in the quilt! I was frantic! I had to literally take the foot and needle off to get the quilt out. I called my LQS where I had bought the machine. They know me and knew about the quilt show and told me to bring it in. I left Sophia to be serviced the next week and went home with a loaner.

A sweet little used Viking 400. It finished the quilting beautifully!

The binding was made from scraps of Habitat fabric.

I love this quilt! I have hung it above my bed and it makes me smile when I look at it.

A little note about my experiences showing this quilt in a traditional quilt show. First they did not hang it correctly. A third of it was on the floor tucked under! OMG! I complained and they pull the bottom out. I was very disappointed that you really could not appreciate the overall pattern. I also received some 'constructive' feedback from the judges who said 'straight lines should be straight'. I laughed because I organically quilted it and did not want perfectly straight or spaced lines (they scare me).