I am working with a small group of quilting friends on a series of group quilts. We’ll each take a turn using the others as quilting slaves. First up is Lisa! At QuiltCon she fell in love with the group quilt submitted by Krista Withers, ‘Define Circle for Me’. Lisa gave each of us three sets of fabric – two sets included Heather Ross fabrics – and instructions. We have to make three mono-chromatic blocks inspired by a circle. I’m actually ahead of schedule and have mine done and ready to hand over! Yay! From my least favorite to most, here they are….

Yellow Circle block for Lisa

Orange Circle block for Lisa

This packet included three Heather Ross charm squares. The one square of the gnome fabric had one gnome barely standing on the edge and another barely peeking in from the side! I wish I had taken a picture of it! I included as much of the gnomes as I could.

Lisa actually entrusted me with her revered fish fabrics! I feel so honored! I LOVE this block! I realize there is a large shadow in the corner of this photo! Oops!

I hope everyone else finishes up soon! I am excited to see how Lisa puts this quilt together. In the meantime …. I’m up next! I have my concept and I’ve started collecting fabric for it. I just have to write up guidelines and encourage everyone else to finish up Lisa’s blocks!

I took one all-day workshop while I was at QuiltCon – ‘Get Your Curve On’ with Sherri Lynn Wood. In the morning, we started by randomly cutting wedges and piecing them together. The first 30 minutes of sewing was in silence – which was great because my friend, Lisa, couldn’t complain about me putting my trash in her little bin! The morning was a breeze!

Working on composition

After moving things around too many times, I ended up with this.

I think I probably like the first layout better, but I kind of lost track and just went with what I had. I got it all pieced the day after I got home. Yes, it’s all pieced, no applique. Lisa had the idea to use Mirror Ball Dot fabric for the background. I’ll admit, I stole the idea. I really liked the dark background of the floor, so I went with black. I finished quilting and binding and it has taken up residence in my foyer. For the binding, I used the silver Mirror Ball Dot and a piece of orange silk. So, here it is…Thanks, Sherri!

All Quilted and Hanging up!

With the owls, tree, and foliage complete it was time for a final look at the top. I guess those owls are going to fall off of the branches without any feet. I was kind of ready to work with something other than fabric, so off to see what I had in fabric paint. I pulled out my Lumiere paints and added the talons.

An Owl with Talons

I also thought their beaks didn’t show up in the photo very well, so I darkened them with fabric ink. It’s kind of scary taking ink and paint to an almost complete quilt top when you’re under a deadline!!

I felt like the quilt needed some kind of border, but I really wanted the piecing to continue through the border. The obvious solution was to use a sheer fabric, in this case chiffon. I went with that because it wasn’t quite as sheer as the organza. If I had to do it again, I’d use organza … I’d like it to be a little more sheer. Then I added a small inside border using a light gray print.

Completed Challenge 2 Quilt

All-in-all I’m pretty happy with the quilt and can hardly wait to have the time to quilt it! But now I’m working on the next challenge. It is a quilt with the theme “Opposites Attract”. I have a rough sketch and have started gathering fabric.

Once the background was completed, I added the owls and the trees. Then rearranged everything many times! Then I thought it needed a little foliage. I didn’t want to add much because I didn’t want to detract from the background or the owls. This is the start.

Plain Foliage – Yawn!

I little boring, I thought. So, I added angelina fibers to highlight the leaves. I pulled apart the fibers and piled them on top of the leaves. Then I added snippets of the red areas of the challenge fabric.

Angelina Piled Up

Covered it with the silicon pressing sheet and ironed it.

Pressed Angelina

After that, I trimmed everything up. Angelina only adheres to itself, so I gently lifted the angelina and added little pieces of fusible web to adhere it to the fabric.

A few more details to go!

…continuation

My goal was to get the owls completed before going on family vacation! With the owls completed and home from vacation, it was time to get started on the quilt top. I taped a piece of paper larger than I wanted the final top to the wall. Taped on my owl sketches, drew the lines for the changes in light, and drew the tree. Here is a picture, but I don’t know how well you can see the sketching.

Line Drawing of the Quilt

Next, I traced the large sections of the background where the light changes and cut them out. I knew would have to paper piece the background. I pulled a lot of blue to purple fabrics from my stash – many of them older than I care to admit! Divided them into two piles of light and dark. Then started randomly piecing them on the paper.

Paper Piecing the Background

Once I had all the background pieces done, I laid out the owls just to see how they looked. One thing I learned while sewing these very large, paper-backed sections together: I can sew standing up! That really made it a lot easier.

Pieced Background

to be continued …