Tag Archives: challenge quilt

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Six for six! This little quilt completes season 12 of Project QUILTING. And true to form, I waited until the last 24 hours of the one-week challenge to get started. And as you know, the later I start, the smaller the quilt gets. ;-)

This week's challenge is Ab Intra, or "from within." At first glance, I think the theme is a little intimidating. But really, there are so many options. So far, there have been a variety of deep, personal, or lighthearted submissions.

It was hard for me to roll over the one year mark of being home during the pandemic this week. Beyond the general stress of the pandemic and the waiting for our turns in the vaccination line, there are numerous things that have been weighing on me recently. I told a friend I may just make a quilt of this emoji: 🤯 (the head exploding), because that’s it what’s inside a lot of the time these days. I consider this little improv quilt to be the fabric equivalent of that idea. I had no plan, just grabbing a couple solids to get started and moving between the sewing machine and the cutting table as I worked.

My quilt finished at 5" x 6 1/2". I used Aurifil 50 wt Desert Dawn Variegated (#4648) for my quilting and binding, chosen because it was leftover from another project and already had a bobbin wound. It was backed and bound with remnants. (One of the best parts of smaller quilts is the likelihood that I have remnant binding made that will work for the project.) I quilted with a zig zag meander, one of my favorites. This quilt marks Day 50 of my 100 Days of Free Motion Quilting. (I'm overdue on sharing on the blog, but I've been posting daily on Instagram @sarahgoerquilts.)

A shadowy pic to show off the texture:

Plenty big for my water cup and room for a snack!

Be sure to hop over to see the other entries this week!

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This week's Project QUILTING challenge is You're Crazy, inspired by the "crazy quilt" movement of the late 1800s. I honestly hesitated a bit about participating, because I've become more aware of ableist language and I've tried to edit the word crazy out of my everyday vocabulary. Ableism is defined as discrimination or social prejudice against people with disabilities based on the belief that typical abilities are superior. It includes the use of ableist words, many of which people don't realize have an impact on people with disabilities. If this isn't a concept you're familiar with, I encourage you to check out those two links above.

But in the context of this challenge the word "crazy" is being used as a historical reference to a widely known style of quilts from another time. I've chosen for my small piece to be inspired by crazy quilts by the style of piecing, use of a non-quilting cotton fabric (the denim I used to back it), omission of batting, and use of embroidery (which I used to hand quilt my little art quilt).

I chose a variety of embroidery stitches in five colors of Aurifloss. MMXXI = 2021 for the year.

My piece finished at approximately 6" x 6".

Old jeans for the backing.

I'm linking up with Project QUILTING. Hop over to see how others were inspired by the quilts of the 1800s.

P.S. My Show Me Something March linkup post will be coming out soon. But, FYI, this month it's Show Me Something with Squares! (I hope to see some creative uses of squares, but welcome

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Ya know how I said I was going to start early in the week for this week's challenge? Nope. Here's my Saturday quilt, finished in the wee early hours of Sunday morning.

I taught the first half of my All About Angles workshop on Tuesday. I can't teach a workshop without being inspired by my students to create another version on one of my techniques. I don't always have time to carry that out, but this week's Project QUILTING challenge was the perfect opportunity. This week's theme is Virtual Vacation. We were asked to make a project that was somehow inspired by vacation.

On my very first weekend away with my husband we went to Monterey for the weekend to celebrate my 30th birthday (thirteen years ago!). We stayed in a lovely B&B, visited the Monterey Bay Aquarium, and walked around Pacific Grove. This included a stop at Back Porch Fabrics where I purchased this fat quarter of fish fabric. I intended to make a mini quilt as a memento of the weekend. This challenge was the perfect opportunity to finally use the fabric, but I opted for a table runner. I cut the fat quarter in half. This determined the width of the runner. Then I pieced eight All About Angles units (one didn't make the cut) in coordinating Kona solids. They weren't all labeled, but this included Kona Papaya, Parrot, and Breakers.

The quilt is bound with a pillowcase finish and free motion quilted in 50wt Aurifil Jade (#4093). I echoed the piecing in the All About Angles panels and quilted seaweed among the fish. The runner finished at approximately 10" x 56", the perfect size for my kitchen island.

For those of you who have seen my PQ 12.1 and PQ 12.2 projects you may remember that I was using a modern traditional design for each challenge. I had to make the choice to skip modern traditional this time, because I couldn't get excited about a way to feature the large print fish and maintain a modern traditional design in a 16" mini. I hope to be back to modern traditional designs for the last three challenges this season.

Thanks for visiting! Be sure to hop over and see the many vacation quilts linked up on Kim's blog for the Virtual Vacation challenge.