Madrona Road Challenge Quilt and a Long Week!

I have not gotten a good start to my blog. There are still so many things I do not yet know, but I'm learning. Soon I hope to understand how to link other people's blogs to mine and ad widgets and so on.

In the meantime,I spent the past week designing, piecing and quilting a challenge piece for the Modern Quilt Guild called the Madrona Road Challenge. I had to have my finished piece photographed and uploaded to the site before midnight last night. I got done in time in spite of a major migraine Wednesday afternoon that stayed with me well into the evening. The challenge was to use the set of Michael Miller fabrics from his Madrona Road Collection. We were not allowed to add anything except more of the fabric collection or solids. Our VBMQG didn't get our fabrics until quite late. We were given our 7 fat quarters on January 19. My friend, Mary, from the blog, Fairly Merry, decided to get hers done in time for the national challenge. I decided if she could do it, I probably could, too. My quilt ended up being 27" square, hers is much larger. She also got quite crazy with her piecing. The result was awesome but nuts, all the same. I was happy we were both able to get our challenges done in time.

Here are some pictures of the process and then my finished quilt.

I began my piece with the writing fabric on the black or charcoal background with the offset circle. Then I added a couple of blocks which began as blocks I found in the book Modern Blocks: 99 Quilt Blocks from Your Favorite Designers. But these blocks were made to be 12" finished blocks which I did not want. To say my math skills leave something to be desired is an understatement at best!

  
Also in my rush, I turned things here and there. You'll see in the finished piece I actually turned the top right hand block counterclockwise 90 %. I'd like to say I planned it that way, but not so much. I realize I turned it after I posted the finished top for the first time. I did decide I liked it as well the way I had it and left it.

The picture above is the finished front. I spent quite a lot of time quilting it pretty heavily. I love using a large variety of types of quilting. I get bored doing the same thing over the whole quilt. This type of a top lends itself well to a  variety of quilting.

This is a close-up of some of the quilting. As you can see I change what I'm doing often!

I love how the quilting on the circle turned out but I did not like the spiral I began quilting it (and the writing fabric) with in the beginning. Yes...I un-stitched that entire section and did it over. It was worth every grueling minute!

I did repeat the center block quilting on the other flower pieces along with the tiny pebbles. 

The little corner blocks inside this block ended up being 1/4"each piece. I did not piece it that small. It started with about 3/4" squares and I cut it down once pieced so it would more accurate.

I hope you enjoy my small quilt. I am now taking a small breather before getting on with my next project. It's time to quilt my Pile of Fabrics Skillbuilder BOM first two blocks! Coming soon...

Drop over to Mary's blog to catch a glimpse of her finished challenge quilt.  http://fairlymerry.blogspot.com/

New Beginnings and WIP

I have been looking at this blog for weeks now trying to arrange things and get everything the way I want it before I actually posted for the first time. I had my friend, Mary, from the blog Fairly Merry  drop by to give me some tips. I almost missed worked that day because we got so carried away! Obviously, I have a long ways to go but I decided it's time just to make my first post. I have time to get everything the way I want it in the next few weeks as I begin to learn more about blogging.

I work full time and don't always get time to quilt every week but usually I have time to sneak in a little creative time. The past week I have begun two new projects. The first is my first two blocks for the Pile of Fabric Skill Builder BOM. I thought it might be fun to do that along with a newbie quilter friend of mine so I could help her along if she got stuck. Plus I liked the finish quilt. Here are the first two blocks I made:

This Block is called The Sound Wave. It's the first block.

Here's the second block called Magnum.

Both blocks are ready for quilting. I decided to go along with the quilt as you go method and see how that goes. I used this method in the past for a couple of baby quilts and will be interested to see if they do this the same way.I will add a button to Pile Of Fabrics BOM blog just as soon as I can figure out how!