Happy National Quilting Day!!
I have participated in most of the
project quilting challenges from Persimon Dreams. This is my first year participating. It was a blast! I can wait for next year and new challenges.
I started this challenge with the thought that I wanted to combine the monkey wrench and flying geese in a sneaky way. I started with just the center monkey wrench with the geese hidden in the center. Then I remembered seeing a picture captioned "how many flying geese?" and added the outer corners. Then I colored my drawing using my favorite colors (which I have a TON of fabric of).
I believe that your first solution to a problem isn't always the best, soil draw it again but colored it different.
I also wanted to try doing a positive/negative block and flipped some of the outer geese. I thought that I was satisfied with the design, so started to figure out the sizes of pieces I needed to cut. I figured too different sizes; one with a 2" center and one with a 4" center.
I left the drawings alone for half a day. When I looked at the drawings again, I decided with a little help, that I like how the border geese on the last drawing give a pointed frame and liked the colors from my first drawing. So, I drew it one more time.
Next, I picked out fabrics from my stash that matched the colors I planned in my drawing.
I found an awesome tutorial on how to make flying geese 4 at a time! It was super easy that way, and perfect because I had 4 or 8 to make of each kind.
I have made lots of half square triangles before, and decided to use the 4 at a time method since I needed four.
Here are all the sections - flying geese, half square triangles (for the monkey wrench), and solid pieces.
I chain piece as much as possible. I feel like it makes everything go quickly and I like how it keeps the pieces in order. I wanted the fabrics to speak for themselves, so a stitched in the ditch to quilt it. I also like how then the front is ghosted on the back.
I really enjoy how it turned out! The finished piece is 16" x 16". I plan on using it as a table topper or possibly a wall hanging.
I create near Madison, WI.
I made a little progress on my Arrow Quilt today. I completed all of the red arrows. I didn't make any modifications to the provided colors for these arrows. It went quicker today than yesterday!
Last week while on my Honeymoon I saw an Instagram post about this Bucket Bag Challenge. I was intrigued by the bag and saved the tutorial as something I wanted to sew someday. I didn't think I would participate in the challenge because I was gone and didn't have an idea for what I wanted it to look like. BUT last night I had a dream about putting on arrow on the front of it, similar to what I made yesterday for the Arrow Quilt I'm sewing. I had to modify the arrow pattern from the quilt a little bit to make it smaller and had to modify the directions from the bucket bag tutorial quite a bit to make it the right size with the arrow instead of what he put on the from. It wasn't too difficult to figure out though. I made the outside of the bag out of extra fabric from other projects. For the inside fabric, rope, and grommets I had to make a run to JoAnns. Oh darn! ;-) I decided on this amazing bright lime green canvas for the inside because I LOVE bright colors and black rope to not distract from the arrow design. I've sewn a few circle bottomed bags in the past, so once I had the pieces cut out, the bag went together pretty quickly.
I started a kit that I got a few months ago; Elizabeth Hartman Pointy Pattern Quilt Kit. I'm making a few modifications to the colors. I wanted the green/yellow one to be more similar in colors; more about that section later. I also replaced the pink arrows with true orange that I will place opposite the red arrows in the finished quilt.
