My quilt show entries

In Welcome to the Show! I teased you with mentions of the quilts I'd entered into our exhibition. Well, I'm embarrassed to admit there weren't many. I think I've said before that my quilting has been neglected lately so I only had three small items to submit.

The first was part of the button-up group challenge. Did you guess which was mine? It's in the middle row on the far left. 

We were all given two pieces of fabric - mine were the coral (behind the fan) and the dragonfly batik. Every block had to contain at least one of these fabrics, plus any others of our choosing from a limited colour palette. We were also given an A3 pattern of the layout. Other than these restrictions, we were free to use whatever themes, designs or techniques we wished. As you can see, my blocks include a mixture of foundation-piecing and machine applique.

This is my favourite block. I'm pretty sure the pattern was from Quilters Newsletter Magazine.

My next entry was again a group challenge: the teabag quilts. These were so-named because we were all given a teabag to dye a plain piece of calico. The challenge also specified the dimensions and that the only other colour must be red.

I'd been looking for an opportunity to have a go at the folded flowers in Kumiko Sudo's book, Fabled Flowers. Although I worked on some other ideas, this was the one I kept coming back to.

The flower pattern I used is Clematis and I also used the Akebia Sashiko design in the same book.

 

My final entry was this one, 'Drunk on Batik', inspired by 'Oilslick' by Susan Iacuone in the book Quiltskills. I have to confess here that the quilt was actually made several years ago but had never been exhibited. It could really do with more quilting which I intend to do in that mystical and probably imaginary period called 'some day'.

And that's it. Three years since the last exhibition and that's all I could muster. Note to self: must try much harder for next time. In fact, since then, I've started working on Chickpea's quilt and am determined to complete it. If I aim to sew at least one length of thread a few times a week, it might just be finished for Christmas. Doesn't sound so daunting when you say it like that.