Wednesday, April 23, 2014

Red and White - Make It Challenge



Following along with the Year of Red and White Challenges, I've made a red and white quilt!

This design is mine and was entered in Phase II of the challenges.

Let me know if you'd like it as a pattern.

The unique shape of the chevron is very popular and I've seen it constructed in several ways, but not like this. I wanted to minimize the number of seams and minimize the 'bias' edge handling.

Using a big square and cutting it on the diagonal both ways provides the triangle used for all rows except at the ends. In order to be efficient with the fabric, I've got a trick on creating those from within one of the larger cuts.

This is the lap size approx. 48"x60" hanging over our deck with a slight breeze.
 
 
 
 
The freemotion quilting was an experiment to try a variety of ideas, so it is not perfect, but I'll walk you through each quilting design and the border.

Solid Red  --three separate areas of the dark red, the top one is a heart with echoed once and then a scallop type fill in the background;
 
 
the middle one is a design taken from the border print with a pebbles and swirls fill in the background. The swirls on the sides should have been bigger and the top should have been smaller to provide better balance with the larger motif used in this section.

White with red circles -- This one probably detracts from the quilt more than I'd like it to, but the fabric had small white life saver type rings on it, so used that as inspiration. The parallel lines inbetween were a big tricky, but by the time I did the 2nd set I had a good system and was able to do the entire zig zag in one continuous line except for the inner round of each circle.

the bottom one is also taken from the border print and is a heart flower with two leaves and arching edge at the very bottom. The background is an echo in the large triangle. The side corners have a scroll going both directions with dense fill in the background.


Red w/white feathers --fabric is so busy that you can't really see the quilting, but I did a big feather with pearls in the stem.
 
Red w/bubbles --again ...the fabric is busy but did big pebbles.
 
White with red circles -- This one probably detracts from the quilt more than I'd like it to, but the fabric had small white life saver type rings on it, so used that as inspiration. The parallel lines inbetween were a big tricky, but by the time I did the 2nd set I had a good system and was able to do the entire zig zag in one continuous line except for the inner round of each circle.


Inner white border - mimicking the zig zag of the quilt design, I echoed a zig zag along the white border adding the heart flower with leaves element from the printed border to fill one side of the zig zag. The other side of the zig zag was left un-quilted. No background fill in the inner border at all.
 
Red border print - following the motif in the border to quilt it sufficiently. Border is busy so just quilted it enough to be sufficient for consistent density.
 
Outer white border - Really had fun with this one. Similar to the inner white border with the zig zag and echoing it except when I got to the corner and it kinda tapers to only a single line. Fills are intense in this area so the zig zag will really pop. Motifs from the red border are used (heart flower with leaves) and a ribbon candy fill on the outside triangles on the short ends of the quilt and the inner fill uses pebbles on all sides. The final inside triangle before each corner used a loop in a loop to fill--always looking for a quicker way to get a dense fill. (see upper detail photo for closeup).
 
Here is a photo from the backside so you can see some of the quilting motifs a bit better.

This will be at
1. the 22nd annual Spring Fling Quilt Show "Fronen Steppdecker" in Odessa (WA) Quilt Show April 25-26, 2014

2. the Krazy Horse Quilters Annual Show in Pendleton (OR) May 3-4, 2014

3. the Ferry Co. Piece 'n Pals Quilt Show Aug. 28-31, 2014. (UPDATE: A Blue Ribbon Winner from the Ferry Co. Fair and received a ribbon from WSQ - 2nd place).

4. WSQ-Spokane Quilt Show, Oct. 17-19, 2014.






















Update: September 2014
This was shown at the Piece 'n Pals Quilt Show during the Ferry Co. Fair in late August 2014. It received a blue ribbon and the WSQ 2nd place ribbon.

This will be in the WSQ Spokane show in October.

I actually made another red/white quilt this year too. Find details about it at http://kissedquilts.blogspot.com/2014/09/a-challenge-done-two-ways.html  It received the Judges Choice at the Piece 'n Pals Challenge.